Reading the Books Back in Time!
by ShineBrightGranger
Summary: Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Kieran, Ash along with others in their year go back in time, but the difference is that they are in a different dimension and they were stuck there!NonCannon Pairings. ! Follow them as they read the books and find new love.
1. Chapter 1

They obviously had no clue on what was going to happen. Hermione and her good friend Ash and Kieran were in the library studying the theory on werewolves and how they came to existence.

Hermione begged her friends to help her, nobody knew about Hermione's major crush on Professor Lupin. It was just last night when Hermione drew the werewolves attention away from mauling her friend by howling to the moon.

They were flipping through books when suddenly one slammed into them from behind knocking them out.

( Couple hours later)

They woke up in the middle of a deserted room, it looked like an old classroom but they weren't sure because there was no desks.

They gingerly lifted themselves from the ground and glanced around the room. "How did we get here? Do you remember anything Mione?"

Said girl shook her head, but picked up a couple of books off the ground. She glanced at the covers and was shocked into silence.

"Look at these, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Ash; these are books about Harry!"

Ash and Kieran looked over her shoulder and gasped in shock, they both grabbed Hermione by the arm, and they dragged her out of the classroom in the direction of the Great Hall; but when they drew nearer they heard loud talking coming from the inside.

The girls stopped and Kieran took out her wand. She placed Notice-Me-Not enchantments upon herself and Hermione and they slipped into the room.

What was in there definitely shocked them to hell and back, Harry and the whole people in their year were there, along with many people they didn't know. They uncast the Notice-Me-Not charm and they announced their presence.

"Potter! How did you get here?" Harry shot around and grinned as he recognized them, but he wasn't the only one to turn around. An exact look alike turned around also; but the difference between the two was that he had hazel eyes.

They both answered at the same time, "We were born this way." They looked at eachother and grinned. Looks like they already introduced themselves.

Harry threw his arm out in their direction and announced, "Everyone these are my good friends Hermione Granger and Ashitari (though you need to call her Ash or she will fry you) Nantill and Kieran Lycan."

Dumbledore gave the three girls a warm sparkly smile and motioned them to sit down. Hermione sat down though Ash and Kieran decided to lean against a wall.

Dumbledore glanced at the doors and his eyes began twinkling madly. A loud excited voice rang through everyones ear. Ash immediately recognized the voice and tried to make a break for it.

But before she got far, strong arms wrapped themselves around her waist and yanked her against a warm chest. A teenage boy's voice purred in her ear, "Ashitari my amore, I missed you so much ever since you left Beuaxboxtens. Why did you leave me, you know of my love for you."

Ash was getting ticked off and she tried clawing herself out of his arms, "Get the hell away from me Zabini! You Greek menace!"

Blaise Zabini stared at the black haired, pale skinned boy in shock! How can this creep be a relative of his?!

Blake Zabini lovingly rubbed his head against the short girls neck. "Oh, now that I have found you; I shall never allow you out of my sight again!" Blainous Zabini obviously got around the female population quite a bit.

Fleur Delacour smirked from behind them, she knew the girl had feelings for Blake but she was to stubborn to even take notice of them.

She finally managed to wiggle out of the boys hold and jumped onto Hermione's lap; shivering like a kitten in rain. She transformed into her Anigamus form, which was an Arctic Fox.

Hermione laughed and just pet her friend on the head. Everyone else settled down after the fiasco and turned their attention to the headmaster.

Dumbledore gazed at them and spoke softly, "Now can anyone explain how we got here?"

Hermione shot up, and pulled the books out of her cloak; but of course she didn't notice when she knocked her friend out of her lap and onto the ground. Luckily before Blake could grab her into his hold again, James Potter picked her up swiftly and placed her in his lap and began to stroke her fur.

"Professor! When I and my friend woke up in a different room, these books were with us. I think whoever sent us here wants us to read them!"

Hermione had made her way to the front of the room and handed the big stack of books to Dumbledore and took a seat next to a shy Remus.

Kieran smirked at the too and settled back into the wall, shoving her wand back into her pocket; she had drawn it out when that idiot smothered her friend.

Dumbledore, after examining the books settled his eyes on Harry and searched his face. The boy seemed to be alright for his life story to be read so Dumbledore picked up the top book and read it out loud.

"Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone."

The Golden Trio grinned at eachother as they began.

**CHAPTER ONE - THE BOY WHO LIVED. **

Many were conufed, The Boy Who Lived? Harry looked down at his hands in embarassement.

**Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.**

Lily laughed outright, she thinks she knew what this is about.

**They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense.**

Many in the hall snorted and Dumbledore continued.

**Mr. Dursley was the director of a firm called Grunnings, which made drills.**

**He was a big, beefy man with hardly any neck, although he did have a very large mustache. Mrs. Dursley was thin and blonde and had nearly twice the usual amount of neck, which came in very useful as she spent so much of her time craning over garden fences, spying on the neighbors.**

Many imagined the woman in their head, all of them shuddered in disgust.

**The Dursleys had a small son called Dudley and in their opinion there was no finer boy anywhere.**

**The Dursleys had everything they wanted, but they also had a secret, and their greatest fear was that somebody would discover it.**

Hermione glared firey daggers at the book, hoping with all her might that it would burst into flames.

**They didn't think they could bear it if anyone found out about the Potters.**

Ash nuzzeled her head against James chest in reasurrence when his face grew purple in anger. Sirius though, wasn't stopped, "There is absolutely nothing wrong with the Potters!"

**Mrs. Potter was Mrs. Dursley's sister, but they hadn't met for several years; in fact, Mrs. Dursley pretended she didn't have a sister.**

Ash and Kieran, who had also changed into her anigamus form, hissed and howled in anger.

**Because her sister and her good-for-nothing husband were as unDursleyish**

Hermione, Remus and the Ravenclaws spoke, "That's not a word."

**as it was possible to be. The Dursleys shuddered to think what the neighbors would say if the Potters arrived in the street.**

Sirius had to be held down by Remus and James so he wouldn't find the Dursleys, and destroy their whole existence.

**The Dursleys knew that the Potters had a small son, too, but they had never even seen him. This boy was another good reason for keeping the Potters away; they didn't want Dudley mixing with a child like that.**

Draco and Lucius raised their eyebrows in shock, not even their parents kept them away from the muggles when they were children.

**When Mr. and Mrs. Dursley woke up on the dull, grey Tuesday our story starts, there was nothing about the cloudy sky outside to suggest that strange and mysterious things would soon be happening all over the country.**

**Mr. Dursley hummed as he picked out his most boring tie for work,and Mrs. Dursley gossiped away happily as she wrestled a screaming Dudley into his high chair.**

**None of them noticed a large, tawny owl flutter past the window.**

Everyone grinned, an exciting part was surely going to come.

**At half past eight, Mr. Dursley picked up his briefcase, pecked Mrs. Dursley on the cheek, and tried to kiss Dudley good-bye but missed, because Dudley was now having a tantrum and throwing his cereal at the walls. "Little tyke,"**

Madame Pomphrey shrieked, "He is encouraging his child to behave that way!"

**Chortled Mr. Dursley as he left the house. He got into his car and backed out of number four's drive.**

**It was on the corner of the street that he noticed the first sign of something peculiar - a cat reading a map.**

Many eyes shot quickly towards their headmistress but looked quickly away when she glared at them.

**For a second, Mr. Dursley didn't realize what he had seen - then he jerked his head around to look again. There was a tabby cat standing on the corner of Privet Drive, but there wasn't a map in sight. What could he have been thinking of? It must have been a trick of the light. Mr. Dursley blinked and stared at the cat. It stared back. As Mr. Dursley drove around the corner and up the road, he watched the cat in his mirror. It was now reading the sign that said Privet Drive - no, looking at the sign; cats couldn't read maps or signs.**

Sirius snickered behind his hand, trying to make it into a cough but was fairly unsuccessful. Kieran curled up at his feet.

**Mr. Dursley gave himself a little shake and put the cat out of his mind. As he drove toward town he thought of nothing except a large order of drills he was hoping to get that day.**

**But on the edge of town, drills were driven out of his mind by something else. As he sat in the usual morning traffic jam, he couldn't help noticing that there seemed to be a lot of strangely dressed people about. People in cloaks.**

Amusing, he was just plain amusing to all of them. Blake was shooting daggers at James, how dare he snuggle up to what was his.

**Mr. Dursley couldn't bear people who dressed in funny clothes - the getups you saw on young people! He supposed this was some stupid new fashion. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and his eyes fell on a huddle of these weirdos standing quite close by.**

Purebloods shot up in rage, muggles wore more weird clothes then they did! Half-bloods and Muggleborns merely just rolled their eyes and listened.

**They were whispering excitedly together. Mr. Dursley was enraged to see that a couple of them weren't young at all; why, that man had to be older than he was, and wearing an emerald-green cloak! The nerve of him! But then it struck Mr. Dursley that this was probably some silly stunt - these people were obviously collecting for something... yes, that would be it.**

**The traffic moved on and a few minutes later, Mr. Dursley arrived in the Grunnings parking lot, his mind back on drills.**

Hermione grumbled about what an idiot this man was, Cho Chang rolling her eyes at the Know-it-all.

**Mr. Dursley always sat with his back to the window in his office on the ninth floor. If he hadn't, he might have found it harder to concentrate on drills that morning. He didn't see the owls swooping past in broad daylight, though people down in the street did; they pointed and gazed open-mouthed as owl after owl sped overhead. Most of them had never seen an owl even at nighttime.**

**Mr. Dursley, however, had a perfectly normal, owl-free morning. He yelled at five different people. He made several important telephone calls and shouted a bit more. He was in a very good mood until lunchtime, when he thought he'd stretch his legs and walk across the road,**

Harry's head shot up, this couldn't be his uncle.

**To buy himself a bun from the bakery.**

And the world makes sense again.

**He'd forgotten all about the people in cloaks until he passed a group of them next to the baker's. He eyed them angrily as he passed. He didn't know why, but they made him uneasy. This bunch were whispering excitedly, too, and he couldn't see a single collecting tin. It was on his way back past them, clutching a large doughnut in a bag, that he caught a few words of what they were saying.**

**"The Potters, that's right, that's what I heard yes, their son, Harry" Mr. Dursley stopped dead.**

James glared at anybody that sent any looks Harry's way. He may not like the fact that he married Evans in that dimension, but nobody looked at his son that way.

**Fear flooded him. He looked back at the whisperers as if he wanted to say something to them, but thought better of it.**

**He dashed back across the road, hurried up to his office, snapped at his secretary not to disturb him, seized his telephone, and had almost finished dialing his home number when he changed his mind. He put the receiver back down and stroked his mustache, thinking... no, he was being stupid.**

**Potter wasn't such an unusual name. He was sure there were lots of people called Potter who had a son called Harry. Come to think of it, he wasn't even sure his nephew was called Harry.**

**He'd never even seen the boy. It might have been Harvey. Or Harold. There was no point in worrying Mrs. Dursley; she always got so upset at any mention of her sister. He didn't blame her - if he'd had a sister like that...**

**but all the same, those people in cloaks...**

**He found it a lot harder to concentrate on drills that afternoon and when he left the building at five o'clock, he was still so worried that he walked straight into someone just outside the door.**

**"Sorry,"**

Many who met the bastard and his ways raised their eyebrows into their hairlines in surprise, they didn't know that he could apologize to anyone.

**He grunted, as the tiny old man stumbled and almost fell. **

**It was a few seconds before Mr. Dursley realized that the man was wearing a violet cloak. He didn't seem at all upset at being almost knocked to the ground. On the contrary, his face split into a wide smile and he said in a squeaky voice that made passersby stare, "Don't be sorry, my dear sir, for nothing could upset me today! Rejoice, for You-Know-Who has gone at last! Even Muggles like yourself should be celebrating, this happy, happy day!" And the old man hugged Mr. Dursley around the middle and walked off.**

"His arms fit?" Harry cried much to peoples amusement.

**Mr. Dursley stood rooted to the spot. He had been hugged by a complete stranger. He also thought he had been called a Muggle, whatever that was. He was rattled. He hurried to his car and set off for home, hoping he was imagining things, which he had never hoped before, because he didn't approve of imagination.**.

**As he pulled into the driveway of number four, the first thing he saw - and it didn't improve his mood - was the tabby cat he'd spotted that morning. It was now sitting on his garden wall. He was sure it was the same one; it had the same markings around its eyes.**

**"Shoo!" said Mr. Dursley loudly. The cat didn't move. It just gave him a stern look.**

The student's burst out laughing, Ash letting out a melodic laughter as she sat comfortably next to James. Blake leaning in to bask in the sound.

**Was this normal cat behavior? Mr. Dursley wondered. Trying to pull himself together, he let himself into the house. He was still determined not to mention anything to his wife.**

Lily rolled her eyes, Petunia would find out anyway. Seeing on how nosy she is.

**Mrs. Dursley had had a nice, normal day. She told him over dinner all about Mrs. Next Door's problems with her daughter and how Dudley had learned a new word ("Won't!").**

Minerva spoke sarcastically, "Well, this I'm sure, proves that they are raising this child wonderfully." Dumbledore's eyes sparkled at his headmistress's sass.

**Mr. Dursley tried to act normally. When Dudley had been put to bed, he went into the living room in time to catch the last report on the evening news: "And finally, bird-watchers everywhere have reported that the nation's owls have been behaving very unusually today. Although owls normally hunt at night and are hardly ever seen in daylight, there have been hundreds of sightings of these birds flying in every direction since sunrise. Experts are unable to explain why the owls have suddenly changed their sleeping pattern." The newscaster allowed himself a grin.**

Bellatrix Black scoffed, "My sister's new husband, I'm sure." Sirius sent her a glare before tuning back in.

**"Most mysterious. And now, over to Jim McGuffin with the weather. Going to be any more showers of owls tonight, Jim." "Well, Ted,"said the weatherman, "I don't know about that, but it's not only the owls that have been acting oddly today. Viewers as far apart as Kent, Yorkshire, and Dundee have been phoning in to tell me that instead of the rain I promised yesterday, they've had a downpour of shooting stars! Perhaps people have been celebrating Bonfire Night early - it's not until next week, folks! But I can promise a wet night tonight." Mr. Dursley sat frozen in his armchair.**

Blaise was wondering if the chair could even hold him without groaning under the mans weight.

**Shooting stars all over Britain. Owls flying by daylight. Mysterious people in cloaks all over the place. And a whisper, a whisper about the Potters...**

James tensed along with Harry and pulled him into the seat right next to him. He wrapped his arm around his son's shoulder and held him close.

**Mrs. Dursley came into the living room carrying two cups of tea. It was no good. He'd have to say something to her. He cleared his throat nervously. "Er - Petunia, dear - you haven't heard from your sister lately, have you?"**

Lilylooked sad. Her sister never writes to her, and they use to be so close.

**As he had expected, Mrs. Dursley looked shocked and angry. After all, they normally pretended she didn't have a sister.**

Lily's friend's were furious, how could someone treat another human being like that.

**"No," she said sharply. "Why?"**

**"Funny stuff on the news," Mr. Dursley mumbled. "Owls... shooting stars... and there were a lot of funny-looking people in town today..."**

Narcissa Black drawled, "No, you don't say."

**"So?" snapped Mrs. Dursley.**

**"Well, I just thought... maybe... it was something to do with... you know... her crowd."**

"HER CROWD! WHAT THE BLOODY HELL DOES THAT TWIT MEAN HER CROWD!" The whole Great Hall burst in anger.

**Mrs. Dursley sipped her tea through pursed lips. Mr. Dursley wondered whether he dared tell her he'd heard the name "Potter." He decided he didn't dare. Instead he said, as casually as he could, "Their son - he'd be about Dudley's age now, wouldn't he?"**

Someone sneered somewhere in the room; it was a Hufflepuff, "Like they would even care to remember."

**"I suppose so," said Mrs. Dursley stiffly.**

Lily glanced at Harry in sympathy, but she made no move to hold him.

**"What's his name again? Howard, isn't it?"**

Ash growled low in her throat, "It's Harry you bloody wanker!"

**"Harry. Nasty, common name, if you ask me."**

"It's better then Duddley." James scoffed, Harry grinned at his dad, he was happy.

**"Oh, yes," said Mr. Dursley, his heart sinking horribly. "Yes, I quite agree." He didn't say another word on the subject as they went upstairs to bed.**

Blake muttered, "Must have been horrifying." Fred and George grinned wickedly to one another.

**While Mrs. Dursley was in the bathroom, Mr. Dursley crept to the bedroom window and peered down into the front garden. The cat was still there.**

**It was staring down Privet Drive as though it were waiting for something. **

The Maruaders roared, "That's Minnie for you!" Minerva scowled at them, though it did not reach her eyes.

**Was he imagining things? Could all this have anything to do with the Potters? If it did... if it got out that they were related to a pair of - well, he didn't think he could bear it.**

Many did not like that man, not at all. He was a twit with a gouging belly.

**The Dursleys got into bed. Mrs. Dursley fell asleep quickly but Mr. Dursley lay awake, turning it all over in his mind. His last, comforting thought before he fell asleep was that even if the Potters were involved, there was no reason for them to come near him and Mrs. Dursley. The Potters knew very well what he and Petunia thought about them and their kind... He couldn't see how he and Petunia could get mixed up in anything that might be going on - he yawned and turned over - it couldn't affect them...**

**How very wrong he was.**

The people who knew what was going to happen next glanced at Dumbledore, their eyes brimming in unreleased tears.

**Mr. Dursley might have been drifting into an uneasy sleep, but the cat on the wall outside was showing no sign of sleepiness. It was sitting as still as a statue, its eyes fixed unblinkingly on the far corner of Privet Drive. It didn't so much as quiver when a car door slammed on the next street, nor when two owls swooped overhead. In fact, it was nearly midnight before the cat moved at all.**

**A man appeared on the corner the cat had been watching, appeared so suddenly and silently you'd have thought he'd just popped out of the ground. The cat's tail twitched and its eyes narrowed.**

Many ideas ran through the student's brains, who could this man be?

**Nothing like this man had ever been seen on Privet Drive. He was tall, thin, and very old, judging by the silver of his hair and beard, which were both long enough to tuck into his belt. He was wearing long robes, a purple cloak that swept the ground, and high-heeled, buckled boots.**

"DUMBLEDORE!" Though the Maruader's minus Peter shouted "Dumbles!"

**His blue eyes were light, bright, and sparkling behind half-moon spectacles and his nose was very long and crooked, as though it had been broken at least twice. This man's name was Albus Dumbledore.**

The students roared, but none louder then the house of the Lions.

**Albus Dumbledore didn't seem to realize that he had just arrived in a street where everything from his name to his boots was unwelcome.**

Dumbledore was amused at the prospect, and continued on after the laughter died down.

**He was busy rummaging in his cloak, looking for something. But he did seem to realize he was being watched, because he looked up suddenly at the cat, which was still staring at him from the other end of the street. For some reason, the sight of the cat seemed to amuse him. He chuckled and muttered, "I should have known."**

**He found what he was looking for in his inside pocket. It seemed to be a silver cigarette lighter. He flicked it open, held it up in the air, and clicked it. The nearest street lamp went out with a little pop.**

Ron piped up excitedly, "I want one!" Kieran rolled her eyes at the excited ginger, she was currently glaring daggers at a twitching Blake.

**He clicked it again - the next lamp flickered into darkness. Twelve times he clicked the Put-Outer, until the only lights left on the whole street were two tiny pinpricks in the distance, which were the eyes of the cat watching him. If anyone looked out of their window now, even beady-eyed Mrs. Dursley, they wouldn't be able to see anything that was happening down on the pavement. Dumbledore slipped the Put-Outer back inside his cloak and set off down the street toward number four, where he sat down on the wall next to the cat. He didn't look at it, but after a moment he spoke to it.**

**"Fancy seeing you here, Professor McGonagall." He turned to smile at the tabby, but it had gone.**

Minerva flushed a pretty scarlet when her cubs roared.

**Instead he was smiling at a rather severe-looking woman who was wearing square glasses exactly the shape of the markings the cat had had around its eyes. She, too, was wearing a cloak, an emerald one. Her black hair was drawn into a tight bun. She looked distinctly ruffled.**

Regulus looked thoughtful, "A ruffled Minnie, who knew?!" Sirius looked baffled at his brother; he just told a joke.

**"How did you know it was me?" she asked.**

**"My dear Professor, I've never seen a cat sit so stiffly." "You'd be stiff if you'd been sitting on a brick wall all day," said Professor McGonagall.**

The twins chortled in laughter falling out of their seats to the ground.

**"All day? When you could have been celebrating? I must have passed a dozen feasts and parties on my way here." Professor McGonagall sniffed angrily.**

Like she did just now.

**"Oh yes, everyone's celebrating, all right," she said impatiently.**

**"You'd think they'd be a bit more careful, but no - even the Muggles have noticed something's going on. It was on their news." She jerked her head back at the Dursleys' dark living-room window. "I heard it. Flocks of owls... shooting stars... Well, they're not completely stupid. They were bound to notice something. Shooting stars down in Kent - I'll bet that was Dedalus Diggle. He never had much sense."**

Dedalus gapped at his professor who look at him in a 'what do you want me to lie?' gesture.

**"You can't blame them," said Dumbledore gently. "We've had little to celebrate for eleven years."**

Peter counted on his hands and his eyes grew wide as he shivered, "S-So it ends in five y-years." He wasn't answered, but he was receiving glares from the Golden Trio and the sisters.

**"I know that," said Professor McGonagall irritably. "But that's no reason to lose our heads. People are being downright careless, out on the streets in broad daylight, not even dressed in Muggle clothes, swapping rumors." She threw a sharp, sideways glance at Dumbledore here, as though hoping he was going to tell her something, but he didn't, so she went on. "A fine thing it would be if, on the very day You-Know-Who seems to have disappeared at last, the Muggles found out about us all. I suppose he really has gone, Dumbledore."**

**"It certainly seems so," said Dumbledore. "We have much to be thankful for. Would you care for a lemon drop?"**

Ash cheered, "I love lemondrops!" Chocolate covered ones appeared in front of her and she quickly shoved one in her mouth.

**"A what?"**

**"A lemon drop. They're a kind of Muggle sweet I'm rather fond of."**

Dumbledore and Ash gave each other grins and a thumbs up.

**"No, thank you," said Professor McGonagall coldly, as though she didn't think this was the moment for lemon drops. "As I say, even if You-Know-Who has gone -"**

**"My dear Professor, surely a sensible person like your self can call him by his name. All this 'You- Know-Who' nonsense - for eleven years I have been trying to persuade people to call him by his proper name: Voldemort."**

Many in the Great Hall flinched; they couldn't stand hearing the name.

**Professor McGonagall flinched. **

She looked down ashamed, though she received many gentle smiles from everyone.

**but Dumbledore, who was un-sticking two lemon drops, seemed not to notice. "It all gets so confusing if we keep saying 'You-Know-Who.' I have never seen any reason to be frightened of saying Voldemort's name."**

**"I know you haven't, said Professor McGonagall, sounding half exasperated, half admiring. "But you're different. Everyone knows you're the only one You-Know- oh, all right, Voldemort, was frightened of."**

**"You flatter me," said Dumbledore calmly. "Voldemort had powers I will never have."**

Sirius barked, "It's only because your too noble to use them, dear Dumbles."

**"Only because you're too - well - noble to use them."**

Sirius puffed his chest up in mock importance as Minerva flushed scarlet.

**"It's lucky it's dark. I haven't blushed so much since Madam Pomfrey told me she liked my new earmuffs."**

Madame Pomfrey laughed lightly into her hanker chief as student's looked at her oddly.

**Professor McGonagall shot a sharp look at Dumbledore and said, "The owls are nothing next to the rumors that are flying around. You know what everyone's saying. About why he's disappeared. About what finally stopped him." It seemed that Professor McGonagall had reached the point she was most anxious to discuss, the real reason she had been waiting on a cold, hard wall all day, for neither as a cat nor as a woman had she fixed Dumbledore with such a piercing stare as she did now. It was plain that whatever "everyone" was saying, she was not going to believe it until Dumbledore told her it was true. Dumbledore, however, was choosing another lemon drop and did not answer.**

James spoke out, "What's so good about lemon-drops? They are just a candy." Ash looked at the fourth year in shock, then she quickly got out a lemon drop and shoved it into James open mouth. He was shocked at first before he slowly began to suck on the sweet.

**"What they're saying," she pressed on, "is that last night Voldemort turned up in Godric's Hollow. He went to find the Potters. The rumor is that Lily and James Potter are - are - that they're - dead. " Dumbledore bowed his head.**

James froze; the candy still in his mouth as tears gathered up in Harry's eyes, he was yanked into a hug by Kieran. She put his head in the crook of her neck and left him there.

**Professor McGonagall gasped. "Lily and James... I can't believe it... I didn't want to believe it... Oh, Albus..."**

Attempting to lighten the mood, Remus said, "Oh so you do care about us Minnie! We love you too!"

Hermione giggled from beneath her hand and blushed when Remus shyly glanced at her.

**Dumbledore reached out and patted her on the shoulder. "I know... I know..." he said heavily.**

**Professor McGonagall's voice trembled as she went on. "That's not all. They're saying e tried to kill the Potter's son, Harry. But - he couldn't. He couldn't kill that little boy. **

"HOW DARE HE TRY AND KILL MY SON!" James was furious, he couldn't control his anger as many in the room shivered, they never seen him this mad. Ash carefully wrapped her arms around the taller boy and pulled him down.

**No one knows why, or how, but they're saying that when he couldn't kill Harry Potter, Voldemort's power somehow broke - and that's why he's gone."**

Harry always wondered why he had survived, he always figured Dumbledore would eventually tell him.

**Dumbledore nodded glumly.**

**"It's - it's true." faltered Professor McGonagall. "After all he's done... all the people he's killed... he couldn't kill a little boy. It's just astounding... of all the things to stop him... but how in the name of heaven did Harry survive."**

**"We can only guess," said Dumbledore. "We may never know."**

He wouldn't have gotten his answer anyway, it seems; since they are stuck here for the rest of their lives.

**Professor McGonagall pulled out a lace handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes beneath her spectacles.**

Tears were brimming also in all the girls eyes, even Kierans eyes were dripping with them.

**Dumbledore gave a great sniff as he took a golden watch from his pocket and examined it. It was a very odd watch. It had twelve hands but no numbers; instead, little planets were moving around the edge.**

Dumbledore pulled out the same watch and passed it around the room.

**It must have made sense to Dumbledore, though, because he put it back in his pocket and said, "Hagrid's late. I suppose it was he who told you I'd be here, by the way."**

**"Yes," said Professor McGonagall. "And I don't suppose you're going to tell me why you're here, of all places."**

People focused more on this part, but Harry shrunk into himself.

**"I've come to bring Harry to his aunt and uncle. They're the only family he has left now."**

Ash was downright furious, Lily looked a little peeved, her sister hated magic.

**"You don't mean - you can't mean the people who live here." cried Professor McGonagall, jumping to her feet and pointing at number four. "Dumbledore - you can't. I've been watching them all day. You couldn't find two people who are less like us. And they've got this son - I saw him kicking his mother all the way up the street, screaming for sweets. Harry Potter can't come and live here!"**

Gryffindor's from both times stood up; red faced, and started shouting profanities.

**"It's the best place for him," said Dumbledore firmly. "His aunt and uncle will be able to explain everything to him when he's older. I've written them a letter."**

Ash and James screamed; words piling out of their mouths that would make a sailor blush. They had to have several silencing charms put on.

**"A letter." repeated Professor McGonagall faintly, sitting back down on the wall. "Really, Dumbledore, you think you can explain all this in a letter. These people will never understand him! He'll be famous - a legend - I wouldn't be surprised if today was known as Harry Potter day in the future**

The hall burst into righteous laughter; Harry Potter Day, they wouldn't be all that shocked if they tried.

**- there will be books written about Harry - every child in our world will know his name!"**

**"Exactly," said Dumbledore, looking very seriously over the top of his half-moon glasses. "It would be enough to turn any boy's head. Famous before he can walk and talk! Famous for something he won't even remember! Can't you see how much better off he'll be, growing up away from all that until he's ready to take it."**

Harry groaned, he still couldn't take all the fame that was rushed at him. He was glad he finally got a break, possibly for forever, no- that would be to good to be true.

**Professor McGonagall opened her mouth, changed her mind, swallowed, and then said, "Yes - yes, you're right, of course. But how is the boy getting here, Dumbledore." She eyed his cloak suddenly as though she thought he might be hiding Harry underneath it.**

Hermione's eyes flared at the prospect.

**"Hagrid's bringing him."**

**"You think it - wise - to trust Hagrid with something as important as this."**

The Maruader's and Harry, Ash, Kieran, Hermione, Dumbledore said with pride, "We would trust Hagrid with our life!" The Half-giant's eyes filled with tears and he blew his nose in his old table cloth.

**"I would trust Hagrid with my life," said Dumbledore.**

They all grinned at eachother, Ash didn't even notice when Blake came and rested against her knees, but James sure as hell did.

**"I'm not saying his heart isn't in the right place," said Professor McGonagall grudgingly, "but you can't pretend he's not careless. He does tend to - what was that."**

"I believe that would be the careless bloke you were currently ridiculing." Snapped; surprisingly, Regulus Black. Sirius stared at his brother in shock before looking away once again.

**A low rumbling sound had broken the silence around them. It grew steadily louder as they looked up and down the street for some sign of a headlight; it swelled to a roar as they both looked up at the sky - and a huge motorcycle fell out of the air and landed on the road in front of them.**

Sirius practically drooled, "I want one soooo bad!"

**If the motorcycle was huge, it was nothing to the man sitting astride it. He was almost twice as tall as a normal man and at least five times as wide. He looked simply too big to be allowed, and so wild - long tangles of bushy black hair and beard hid most of his face, he had hands the size of trash can lids, and his feet in their leather boots were like baby dolphins. In his vast, muscular arms he was holding a bundle of blankets.**

**"Hagrid," said Dumbledore, sounding relieved. "At last. And where did you get that motorcycle."**

**"Borrowed it, Professor Dumbledore, sir," said the giant, climbing carefully off the motorcycle as he spoke. "Young Sirius Black lent it to me. I've got him, sir."**

Padfoot gave a loud cheer and pulled a surprised Kieran into a hug, well until she pushed him back.

**"No problems, were there?"**

**"No, sir - house was almost destroyed, but I got him out all right before the Muggles started swarmin' around. He fell asleep as we was flyin' over Bristol."**

All the females cooed at the mention that Harry fell asleep, Harry flushed a bright pink, it was rather adorable many though.

**Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall bent forward over the bundle of blankets. Inside, just visible, was a baby boy, fast asleep. Under a tuft of jet-black hair over his forehead they could see a curiously shaped cut, like a bolt of lightning.**

**"Is that where -." whispered Professor McGonagall.**

**"Yes," said Dumbledore. "He'll have that scar forever."**

**"Couldn't you do something about it, Dumbledore."**

**"Even if I could, I wouldn't. Scars can come in handy. I have one myself above my left knee that is a perfect map of the London Underground. Well - give him here, Hagrid - we'd better get this over with." Dumbledore took Harry in his arms and turned toward the Dursleys' house.**

**"Could I - could I say good-bye to him, sir." asked Hagrid. He bent his great, shaggy head over Harry and gave him what must have been a very scratchy, whiskery kiss. Then, suddenly, Hagrid let out a howl like a wounded dog.**

Sirius jumped up and shouted, "I take offense to that!" The Maruaders glared at him; realizing his mistake he quickly shut up and sat back down, ignoring the curious stares they were getting.

**"Shhh!" hissed Professor McGonagall, "you'll wake the Muggles!"**

**"S-s-sorry," sobbed Hagrid, taking out a large, spotted handkerchief and burying his face in it. "But I c-c-can't stand it - Lily an' James dead - an' poor little Harry off ter live with Muggles -"**

**"Yes, yes, it's all very sad, but get a grip on yourself, Hagrid, or we'll be found," Professor McGonagall whispered, patting Hagrid gingerly on the arm as Dumbledore stepped over the low garden wall and walked to the front door. He laid Harry gently on the doorstep, took a letter out of his cloak, tucked it inside Harry's blankets, and then came back to the other two. For a full minute the three of them stood and looked at the little bundle; Hagrid's shoulders shook, Professor McGonagall blinked furiously, and the twinkling light that usually shone from Dumbledore's eyes seemed to have gone out.**

Everyone looked down in sadness, how could things like this happen to people so innocent.

**"Well," said Dumbledore finally, "that's that. We've no business staying here. We may as well go and join the celebrations."**

**"Yeah," said Hagrid in a very muffled voice, "I'll be takin' Sirius his bike back. G'night, Professor McGonagall - Professor Dumbledore, sir." Wiping his streaming eyes on his jacket sleeve, Hagrid swung himself onto the motorcycle and kicked the engine into life; with a roar it rose into the air and off into the night.**

Sirius didn't even whoop at the mention of his motorcycle.

**"I shall see you soon, I expect, Professor McGonagall," said Dumbledore, nodding to her. Professor McGonagall blew her nose in reply.**

James, again enlightening the mood, smiled brightly as his professor, "Your amazing Minnie!"

**Dumbledore turned and walked back down the street. On the corner he stopped and took out the silver Put-Outer. He clicked it once, and twelve balls of light sped back to their street lamps so that Privet Drive glowed suddenly orange and he could make out a tabby cat slinking around the corner at the other end of the street. He could just see the bundle of blankets on the step of number four.**

**"Good luck, Harry," he murmured.**

**He turned on his heel and with a swish of his cloak, he was gone.**

Hermione and Remus were the ones to scream now, "YOU LEFT HIM ON A FUCKING DOORSTEP!" But when they realized that they did this at the same time they blushed furiously and sat back down, but they were considerably closer then before.

**A breeze ruffled the neat hedges of Privet Drive, which lay silent and tidy under the inky sky, the very last place you would expect astonishing things to happen. Harry Potter rolled over inside his blankets without waking up. One small hand closed on the letter beside him and he slept on**

All the females just couldn't help themselves, it was just that damn adorable.

**not knowing he was special, not knowing he was famous, not knowing he would be woken in a few hours' time by Mrs. Dursley's scream as she opened the front door to put out the milk bottles, nor that he would spend the next few weeks being prodded and pinched by his cousin Dudley... He couldn't know that at this very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses and saying in hushed voices: "To Harry Potter - the boy who lived."**

McGonnagal got to read next.


	2. Chapter 2

McGonnagal, though reluctantly; began reading the next chapter. Her eyes lit up; this should be interesting.

**CHAPTER TWO - THE VANISHING GLASS.**

"This must be where you do your first accidental magic, Mate!" Ron spoke, grinning ear to ear; he was excited to find out what it was.

**Nearly ten years had passed since the Dursleys had woken up to find their nephew on the front step, but Privet Drive had hardly changed at all.**

"It was rather dull and boring, everybody; even the neighbors routines were the same."

**The sun rose on the same tidy front gardens and lit up the brass number four on the Dursleys' front door; it crept into their living room, which was almost exactly the same as it had been on the night when Mr. Dursley had seen that fateful news report about the owls. Only the photographs on the mantelpiece really showed how much time had passed.**

**Ten years ago, there had been lots of pictures of what looked like a large pink beach ball wearing different-coloured bonnets.**

The Weasley Twins chortled in laughter; they couldn't help themselves, Harry's imagination was phenomenal.

**- but Dudley Dursley was no longer a baby, and now the photographs showed a large blond boy riding his first bicycle, on a carousel at the fair, playing a computer game with his father, being hugged and kissed by his mother.**

**The room held no sign at all that another boy lived in the house, too.**

James eyebrows burst into his messy hairline; did they send his son to an orphanage or something? But by the looks on Harry's face, he knew that wasn't the fact.

**Yet Harry Potter was still there, asleep at the moment, but not for long. His Aunt Petunia was awake and it was her shrill voice that made the first noise of the day.**

**Lily winced, "I feel sorry for you, Harry. Having to wake up to Tuney's voice during the Holidays is pure torture."**

**"Up! Get up! Now!" Harry woke with a start. His aunt rapped on the door again.**

**"Up!" she screeched. Harry heard her walking toward the kitchen and then the sound of the frying pan being put on the stove. He rolled onto his back and tried to remember the dream he had been having. It had been a good one. There had been a flying motorcycle in it. He had a funny feeling he'd had the same dream before.**

**His aunt was back outside the door. "Are you up yet." she demanded.**

**"Nearly," said Harry.**

**"Well, get a move on, I want you to look after the bacon. And don't you dare let it burn, I want everything perfect on Duddy's birthday." Harry groaned.**

**"What did you say." his aunt snapped through the door.**

'He didn't.' Went through everyone's heads that moment.

**"Nothing, nothing..." Dudley's birthday - how could he have forgotten. Harry got slowly out of bed and started looking for socks. He found a pair under his bed and, after pulling a spider** **off one of them, put them on.**

Ron shivered at the mention of the creatures.

**Harry was used to spiders, because the cupboard under the stairs was full of them, and that was where he slept.**

James and Hermione flew up from their seat's; their hair crackling with magic, "THOSE BASTARDS! THEY. WILL. PAY!" Ash and Kieran were more calm as was most of everyone in the room, but magic crackled in the air; bringing a dangerous aura.

**When he was dressed he went down the hall into the kitchen. The table was almost hidden beneath all Dudley's birthday presents. It looked as though Dudley had gotten the new computer he wanted, not to mention the second television and the racing bike.**

**Exactly why Dudley wanted a racing bike was a mystery to Harry, as Dudley was very fat and hated exercise - unless of course it involved punching somebody.**

Angry murmers went through the student's, they just couldn't believe a kid like this was going to exist.

**Dudley's favourite punching bag was Harry, but he couldn't often catch him. Harry didn't look it, but he was very fast.**

**Perhaps it had something to do with living in a dark cupboard, but Harry had always been small and skinny for his age.**

**He looked even smaller and skinnier than he really was because all he had to wear were old clothes of Dudley's, and Dudley was about four times bigger than he was.**

**Harry had a thin face, knobbly knees, black hair,** **and bright green eyes.**

**He wore round glasses held together with a lot of Scotch tape because of all the times Dudley had punched him on the nose.**

**The only thing Harry liked about his own appearance was a very thin scar on his forehead that was shaped like a bolt of lightning.**

**He had had it as long as he could remember, and the first question he could ever remember****asking his Aunt Petunia was how he had gotten it.**

**"In the car crash when your parents died," she had said.**

**"And don't ask questions."**

**Don't ask questions - that was the first rule for a quiet life with the Dursleys.**

Hermione and Remus scoffed and said in unison, "If he doesn't ask questions, how is he supposed to learn!"

**Uncle Vernon entered the kitchen as Harry was turning over the bacon.**

**"Comb your hair!" he barked, by way of a morning greeting.**

**About once a week, Uncle Vernon looked over the top of his newspaper and shouted that Harry needed a haircut. Harry must have had more haircuts than the rest of the boys in his class put together, but it made no difference, his hair simply grew that way - all over the place.**

**Harry was frying eggs by the time Dudley arrived in the kitchen with his mother. Dudley looked a lot like Uncle Vernon. He had a large pink face, not much neck, small, watery blue eyes, and thick blond hair that lay smoothly on his thick, fat head. Aunt Petunia often said that Dudley looked like a baby angel - Harry often said that Dudley looked like a pig in a wig.**

Nobody could hold in their laughter at Harry's imagination, James boasted that it was the Maruader in him.

**Harry put the plates of egg and bacon on the table, which was difficult as there wasn't much room. Dudley, meanwhile, was counting his presents. His face fell.**

**"Thirty-six," he said, looking up at his mother and father. "That's two less than last year."**

The pureblood's in the room looked gobsmacked, "We don't even receive that many present's!"

**"Darling, you haven't counted Auntie Marge's present, see, its here under this big one from Mommy and Daddy."**

**"All right, thirty-seven then," said Dudley, going red in the face.**

**Harry, who could see a huge Dudley tantrum coming on, began wolfing down his bacon as fast as possible in case Dudley turned the table over.**

"Good job Harry! Don't let the pig take your food." The Maruader's cheered. Harry grinned at all of them, he even forgot of his hatred of Pettigrew. I mean, they are in a different dimension now right? It's not like he will turn evil after these books.

**Aunt Petunia obviously scented danger, too, because she said quickly, "And we'll buy you another two presents while we're out today. How's that, popkin. Two more presents. Is that all right''**

**Dudley thought for a moment. It looked like hard work. Finally he said slowly, "So I'll have thirty ... thirty..."**

Hermione practically fainted, "H-he doesn't know how to count. . ." Remus looked at her amused but turned back to the book.

**"Thirty-nine, sweetums," said Aunt Petunia.**

**"Oh." Dudley sat down heavily and grabbed the nearest parcel. "All right then."**

**Uncle Vernon chuckled. "Little tyke wants his money's worth, just like his father. 'Atta boy, Dudley!" He ruffled Dudley's hair.**

No body could come up with a comment. Not even the twin's and Lee Jordan.

**At that moment the telephone rang and Aunt Petunia went to answer it while Harry and Uncle Vernon watched Dudley unwrap the racing bike, a video camera, a remote control air plane, sixteen new computer games, and a VCR.**

**He was ripping the paper off a gold wristwatch when Aunt Petunia came back from the telephone looking both angry and worried.**

**"Bad news, Vernon," she said. "Mrs. Figg's broken her leg. She can't take him." She jerked her head in Harry's direction.**

Minerva looked at Dumbledore, "Isn't she a squib that your friends with?" Dumbledore grinned and gave a hearty nod in return.

**Dudley's mouth fell open in horror, but Harry's heart gave a leap. Every year on Dudley's birthday, his parents took him and a friend out for the day, to adventure parks, hamburger restaurants, or the movies. Every year, Harry was left behind with Mrs. Figg, a mad old lady who lived two streets away. Harry hated it there. The whole house smelled of cabbage and Mrs. Figg made him look at photographs of all the cats she'd ever owned.**

**"Now what." said Aunt Petunia, looking furiously at Harry as though he'd planned this.**

People rolled there eyes. He wouldn't be able to plan something like that.

**Harry knew he ought to feel sorry that Mrs. Figg had broken her leg, but it wasn't easy when he reminded himself it would be a whole year before he had to look at Tibbles, Snowy, Mr. Paws, and Tufty again.**

**"We could phone Marge," Uncle Vernon suggested.**

Harry shivered as a picture of the woman appeared in his mind.

**"Don't be silly, Vernon, she hates the boy."**

Harry raised an eyebrow, "Well I'm glad the feelings mutual, who would like a mustache tomato?"

**The Dursleys often spoke about Harry like this, as though he wasn't there - or rather, as though he was something very nasty that couldn't understand them, like a slug.**

Kieran and Ash were huddled together in a corner whispering to one another, they glanced at the twins and seemed to come to an agreement. They moved back to their previous positions.

**"What about what's-her-name, your friend - Yvonne."**

**"On vacation in Majorca," snapped Aunt Petunia.**

**"You could just leave me here," Harry put in hopefully (he'd be able to watch what he wanted on television for a change and maybe even have a go on Dudley's computer).**

Many glanced at Harry with sadness in their eyes, having to go through that would make them all go mad, it was a wonder that he was so sweet and kind when treated like that.

**Aunt Petunia looked as though she'd just swallowed a lemon. "And come back and find the house in ruins." she snarled.**

"HOW CAN HE CAUSE THE HOUSE TO BE IN RUINS! ACCIDENTAL MAGIC DOES NOT GO TO THAT EXTENT, YOU GIRAFFE!" No one could believe what they were seeing, was Bellatrix Black actually standing up for a half blood. Realizing what just happened, Bella quickly sat back down and didn't look anybody in the eye.

**"I won't blow up the house," said Harry, but they weren't listening.**

**"I suppose we could take him to the zoo," said Aunt Petunia slowly, "...and leave him in the car..."**

Kieran snorted, "He's not a dog, you know." Sirius looked as if he was about to say something but quickly shut up at the looks coming from his friends.

**"That car's new, he's not sitting in it alone..."**

**Dudley began to cry loudly. In fact, he wasn't really crying - it had been years since he'd really cried - but he knew that if he screwed up his face and wailed, his mother would give him anything he wanted.**

Ashitari hissed, "Why that bloody little-" but she was quickly cut off when James covered her mouth with his hand. She glanced at him curiously, but he didn't give anything away.

**"Dinky Duddydums, don't cry, Mummy won't let him spoil your special day!" she cried, flinging her arms around him.**

Behind his hand, Ashitari was mumbling about finding out when exactly this little nutter was going to be born so she could send him a little something. James eyes twinkled in amusement.

**"I... don't... want... him... t-t-to come!" Dudley yelled between huge, pretend sobs. "He always sp- spoils everything!" He shot Harry a nasty grin through the gap in his mother's arms.**

Lily groaned into her arms, "Why did I have to have a nephew like that!?" Her friends looked at her in sympathy before turning back into the reading.

**Just then, the doorbell rang - "Oh, good Lord, they're here!" said Aunt Petunia frantically - and a moment later, Dudley's best friend, Piers Polkiss, walked in with his mother. Piers was a scrawny boy with a face like a rat. He was usually the one who held people's arms behind their backs while Dudley hit them. Dudley stopped pretending to cry at once.**

"Doesn't want to embarrass himself in front of his friend now does he, that little runt." Draco grumbled to himself, but seemed to go unnoticed by everyone except Harry.

**Half an hour later, Harry, who couldn't believe his luck, was sitting in the back of the Dursleys' car with Piers and Dudley, on the way to the zoo for the first time in his life. His aunt and uncle hadn't been able to think of anything else to do with him, but before they'd left, Uncle Vernon had taken Harry aside.**

James narrowed his eyes, his usually warm Hazel now a cold copper, "Don't you dare touch my son Dursley."

**"I'm warning you," he had said, putting his large purple face right up close to Harry's, "I'm warning you now, boy - any funny business, anything at all - and you'll be in that cupboard from now until Christmas."**

"What exact month are they in?" Hermione whispered to herself, she drew curious looks but going unnoticed by her, Remus growled low in his throat and everyone turned back around.

**"I'm not going to do anything," said Harry, "honestly."**

**But Uncle Vernon didn't believe him. No one ever did.**

Peter grumbled to himself, sending glares to his 'friends', "I know the feeling." Remus looked at him confused, but dropped it.

**The problem was, strange things often happened around Harry and it was just no good telling the Dursleys he didn't make them happen.**

**Once, Aunt Petunia, tired of Harry coming back from the barbers looking as though he hadn't been at all, had taken a pair of kitchen scissors and cut his hair so short he was almost bald except for his bangs, which she left "to hide that horrible scar." Dudley had laughed himself silly at Harry, who spent a sleepless night imagining school the next day, where he was already laughed at for his baggy clothes and taped glasses.**

Tear's gathered in Hermione's eyes, she knew what it felt like to be laughed at and ridiculed, Harry sent her an understanding look and pulled her onto his lap in a brotherly manner. She snuggled into him, and rested her head on his shoulder.

**Next morning, however, he had gotten up to find his hair exactly as it had been before Aunt Petunia had sheared it off. He had been given a week in his cupboard for this, even though he had tried to explain that he couldn't explain how it had grown back so quickly.**

Remus howled, "He's definitely your son, Prongs." Everyone, besides those who knew, wondered why they were called those nicknames.

**Another time, Aunt Petunia had been trying to force him into a revolting old sweater of Dudley's (brown with orange puff balls) **

The Weasley's turned a sickly shade of green, Fred and George clutched at eachother. They received sweater's like those from their mother once, they were horrifying.

**The harder she tried to pull it over his head, the smaller it seemed to become, until finally it might have fitted a hand puppet, but certainly wouldn't fit Harry. Aunt Petunia had decided it must have shrunk in the wash and, to his great relief, Harry wasn't punished.**

Many let out a breathe of air that they didn't realize they were holding. 'She's lucky.' The same people released their tight grips on their wands.

**On the other hand, he'd gotten into terrible trouble for being found on the roof of the school kitchens. Dudley's gang had been chasing him as usual when, as much to Harry's surprise as anyone else's, there he was sitting on the chimney.**

James eyes grew wide in awe, his son was amazing, "You apperated!" Harry shrugged and gave a grin, a light blush sprinkled on his pale cheeks.

**The Dursleys had received a very angry letter from Harry's headmistress telling them Harry had been climbing school buildings. But all he'd tried to do (as he shouted at Uncle Vernon through the locked door of his cupboard) was jump behind the big trash cans outside the kitchen doors. Harry supposed that the wind must have caught him in mid- jump.**

Guffahs rang out everywhere in the room, as everyone was transforming their seat's into bean bag couches; their bums were getting sore.

**But today, nothing was going to go wrong. It was even worth being with Dudley and Piers to be spending the day somewhere that wasn't school, his cupboard, or Mrs. Figg's cabbage-smelling living room.**

Some girl's were in tears, how could they treat a child like that?

**While he drove, Uncle Vernon complained to Aunt Petunia. He liked to complain about things: people at work, Harry, the council, Harry, the bank, and Harry were just a few of his favourite subjects. This morning, it was motorcycles.**

"Seem's you're his favorite subject Prongslet!" Sirius attempted to lighten the atmosphere in the room, seemed it worked.

**"... roaring along like maniacs, the young hoodlums," he said, as a motorcycle overtook them.**

"**I had a dream about a motorcycle," said Harry, remembering suddenly. "It was flying."**

Harry flushed in embarrassment, "I shouldn't have said anything." Many agreed with him.

**Uncle Vernon nearly crashed into the car in front. He turned right around in his seat and****yelled at Harry, his face like a gigantic beet with a moustache: "MOTORCYCLES DON'T FLY!" Dudley and Piers sniggered.**

Sirius was angry, even though they were the same age he cared deeply for the pup. After all, he was his best friends kid!

"**I know they don't," said Harry. "It was only a dream." But he wished he hadn't said anything. If there was one thing the Dursleys hated even more than his asking questions, it was his talking about anything acting in a way it shouldn't, no matter if it was in a dream or even a cartoon - they seemed to think he might get dangerous ideas.**

**It was a very sunny Saturday and the zoo was crowded with families. The Dursleys bought Dudley and Piers large chocolate ice creams at the entrance and then, because the smiling lady in the van had asked Harry what he wanted before they could hurry him away, they bought him a cheap lemon ice pop.**

Ash drooled at the mention of lemon's and popped another lemon drop in her mouth.

**It wasn't bad, either, Harry thought, licking it as they watched a gorilla scratching its head who looked remarkably like Dudley, except that it wasn't blond.**

Many toppled onto the floor and laughed their ass's off, Harry had quite an imagination.

**Harry had the best morning he'd had in a long time. He was careful to walk a little way apart from the Dursleys so that Dudley and Piers, who were starting to get bored with the animals by lunchtime, wouldn't fall back on their favorite hobby of hitting him. They ate in the zoo restaurant, and when Dudley had a tantrum because his knickerbocker glory didn't have enough ice cream on top, Uncle Vernon bought him another one and Harry was allowed to finish the first.**

**Harry felt, afterward, that he should have known it was all too good to last.**

Kieran wrapped her arm around Harry's shoulder in comfort, but didn't notice his flushed cheeks.

**After lunch they went to the reptile house. It was cool and dark in there, with lit windows all along the walls. Behind the glass, all sorts of lizards and snakes were crawling and slithering over bits of wood and stone. Dudley and Piers wanted to see huge, poisonous cobras and thick, man-crushing pythons. Dudley quickly found the largest snake in the place. It could have wrapped its body twice around Uncle Vernon's car and crushed it into a trash can - but at the moment it didn't look in the mood. In fact, it was fast asleep.**

Chuckling, Harry lent his head on the girl's shoulder and tried to quell his laughter.

**Dudley stood with his nose pressed against the glass, staring at the glistening brown coils.**

**"Make it move," he whined at his father. Uncle Vernon tapped on the glass, but the snake didn't budge.**

**"Do it again," Dudley ordered. Uncle Vernon rapped the glass smartly with his knuckles, but the snake just snoozed on.**

"He was pretending the whole time." Harry informed everyone, they didn't blame the snake.

**"This is boring," Dudley moaned. He shuffled away.**

**Harry moved in front of the tank and looked intently at the snake. He wouldn't have been surprised if it had died of boredom itself - no company except stupid people drumming their fingers on the glass trying to disturb it all day long. It was worse than having a cupboard as a bedroom, where the only visitor was Aunt Petunia hammering on the door to wake you up; at least he got to visit the rest of the house. The snake suddenly opened its beady eyes. Slowly, very slowly, it raised its head until its eyes were on a level with Harry's.**

Everyone leaned in; but not removing themselves from their seats, Ash finally noticed Blake leaning on her knees and shoved him away. He looked at her with a pout. James smirked at him in amusement.

**It winked.**

Sirius glanced at everybody else, "I don't know if it's just me, but snakes aren't expose to do that are they?" No body answered him, they were just looking at Harry.

**Harry stared. Then he looked quickly around to see if anyone was watching. They weren't. He****looked back at the snake and winked, too.**

Girls giggled at the childishness, it was rather endearing. But James was looking at his 'son' with worry. Could he . . .

**The snake jerked its head toward Uncle Vernon and Dudley, then raised its eyes to the ceiling. It gave Harry a look that said quite plainly: "I get that all the time."**

**"I know," Harry murmured through the glass, though he wasn't sure the snake could hear him. "It must be really annoying."**

**The snake nodded vigorously.**

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled in curiosity, there were many possibilities.

**"Where do you come from, anyway?" Harry asked.**

**The snake jabbed its tail at a little sign next to the glass. Harry peered at it.**

**Boa Constrictor, Brazil.**

**"Was it nice there?" The boa constrictor jabbed its tail at the sign again and Harry read on: This specimen was bred in the zoo.**

**"Oh, I see - so you've never been to Brazil."**

Snape muttered, "Poor snake." Lily shot her friend a warm smile and sat next to him.

**As the snake shook its head, a deafening shout behind Harry made both of them jump.**

**"DUDLEY! MR. DURSLEY! COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT IT'S DOING!" Dudley came waddling toward them as fast as he could.**

**"Out of the way, you," he said, punching Harry in the ribs.**

The hall's wall's cracked slightly from the weight of everyones magical energy surging around.

**Caught by surprise, Harry fell hard on the concrete floor. What came next happened so fast no one saw how it happened - one second, Piers and Dudley were leaning right up close to the glass, the next, they had leapt back with howls of horror.**

Eyes went wide, now they knew what the beginning of the chapter meant.

**Harry sat up and gasped; the glass front of the boa constrictor's tank had vanished.**

Laughter exploded from everyone's mouths, even the Slytherins, Bellatrix was practically in tears. Draco was on his back against the bean bag, but his face was almost blue from lack of oxygen.

**The great snake was uncoiling itself rapidly, slithering out onto the floor. People throughout the reptile house screamed and started running for the exits.**

**As the snake slid swiftly past him, Harry could have sworn a low, hissing voice said, "Brazil, here I come... Thanksss, amigo."**

**The keeper of the reptile house was in shock.**

**"But the glass," he kept saying, "where did the glass go?"**

James chortled, "Probably somewhere in the Potter Vault, that's where stuff involving a Potter ends up."

**The zoo director himself made Aunt Petunia a cup of strong, sweet tea while he apologized over and over again. Piers and Dudley could only gibber. As far as Harry had seen, the snake hadn't done anything except snap playfully at their heels as it passed, but by the time they were all back in Uncle Vernon's car, Dudley was telling them how it had nearly bitten off his leg, while Piers was swearing it had tried to squeeze him to death.**

"How dramatic," but Draco was cut off as Hermione and Harry reminded him of Buckbeak. He flushed red, while Lucius looked at him in curiousity.

**But worst of all, for Harry at least, was Piers calming down enough to say, "Harry was talking to it, weren't you, Harry."**

Remus snarled, "Can't he keep his mouth shut!"

**Uncle Vernon waited until Piers was safely out of the house before starting on Harry. He was****so angry he could hardly speak. He managed to say, "Go - cupboard - stay - no meals," before he collapsed into a chair, and Aunt Petunia had to run and get him a large brandy.**

Lily's hair flared out around her as her green eyes glowed, "I will torture him."

**Harry lay in his dark cupboard much later, wishing he had a watch. He didn't know what time it was and he couldn't be sure the Dursleys were asleep yet. Until they were, he couldn't risk sneaking to the kitchen for some food.**

A lone tear led down James face, no one should ever have to go through this.

**He'd lived with the Dursleys almost ten years, ten miserable years, as long as he could remember, ever since he'd been a baby and his parents had died in that car crash. He couldn't remember being in the car when his parents had died. Sometimes, when he strained his memory during long hours in his cupboard, he came up with a strange vision: a blinding flash of green light and a burning pain on his forehead.**

Hermione and all of Harry's friends grit their teeth in terror, he could REMEMBER the Killing Curse!

**This, he supposed, was the crash, though he couldn't imagine where all the green light came from. He couldn't remember his parents at all. His aunt and uncle never spoke about them, and of course he was forbidden to ask questions. There were no photographs of them in the house.**

"Yes there is, Tunny has a locket with my picture placed inside, I gave it to her for her birthday last year." Lily said all knowingly. It's not like they would have known that in the first place.

**When he had been younger, Harry had dreamed and dreamed of some unknown relation coming to take him away, but it had never happened; the Dursleys were his only family. Yet sometimes he thought (or maybe hoped) that strangers in the street seemed to know him. Very strange strangers they were, too. A tiny man in a violet top hat had bowed to him once while out shopping with Aunt Petunia and Dudley.**

"Who was it, did you ever find out?" Harry smirked, "You'll actually find out in two chapter's if I am correct." They were put out by the answer, but knowing that it came soon they were willing to wait.

**After asking Harry furiously if he knew the man, Aunt Petunia had rushed them out of the shop without buying anything. A wild-looking old woman dressed all in green had waved merrily at him once on a bus. A bald man in a very long purple coat had actually shaken his hand in the street the other day and then walked away without a word. The weirdest thing about all these people was the way they seemed to vanish the second Harry tried to get a closer look.**

Can these people be any more obvious?

**At school, Harry had no one. Everybody knew that Dudley's gang hated that odd Harry Potter in his baggy old clothes and broken glasses, and nobody liked to disagree with Dudley's gang.**

Minerva finished the chapter and looked around the room. She noticed that Ashitari and Kieran weren't wearing a house tie but instead the tie in which first year's wear on the train.

She made a note of this and asked, "Who would like to read next?"

James jumped up like a little boy on Christmas and shouted, "ME ME ME, PLEASE MINNIE?"

She looked at him annoyed but levitated the book to him anyway.

He grinned at her, and snuggled back into his place on the been couch he shared with Ashitari and that annoying bloke, Blake, he believed his name was, and began to read once again.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Sorry guys for the late set up! I meant to have this up earlier but my computer blanked on me and I lost the finished chapters for Reading the Books back in time and My Heart, but thankfully I had the gist of them down!

Enjoy! ShineBrightGranger

James grinned at the title, he knew everyone would love this.

**CHAPTER THREE - THE LETTERS FROM NO ONE.**

Eyes lit up everywhere, Harry smirked behind his cup of cocoa that was served to everyone by House Elves. This was going to be good. Hermione grinned at the twinkle shining in her brother's eyes.

**The escape of the Brazilian boa constrictor earned Harry his longest-ever punishment. By the time he was allowed out of his cupboard again, the summer holidays had started**

They were all disgusted at Lily's sister, that they couldn't help put point the glares at her. They wanted to laugh when Severus tried to glare holes at them.

**and Dudley had already broken his new video camera, crashed his remote control airplane, and, first time out on his racing bike, knocked down old Mrs. Figg as she crossed Privet Drive on her crutches.**

McGonagoll stole a glance at Dumbledore, wasn't a squib that Ablus sent letters too?

**Harry was glad school was over, but there was no escaping Dudley's gang, who visited the house every single day. Piers, Dennis, Malcolm, and Gordon were all big and stupid, but as Dudley was the biggest and stupidest of the lot, he was the leader.**

**The rest of them were all quite happy to join in Dudley's favorite sport: Harry Hunting.**

James, Remus and Sirius flushed red and animalistic growls ripped through their very beings.

**This was why Harry spent as much time as possible out of the house, wandering around and thinking about the end of the holidays, where he could see a tiny ray of hope. When September came he would be going off to secondary school and, for the first time in his life, he wouldn't be with Dudley. Dudley had been accepted at Uncle Vernon's old private school, Smeltings. Piers Polkiss was going there too. Harry, on the other hand, was going to** **Stonewall High, the local public school. Dudley thought this was very funny.**

Madame Pomphrey scoffed, "At least he's as far away from you as possible." Harry shot a grin her way which received a small smile.

**"They stuff people's heads down the toilet the first day at Stonewall," he told Harry. "Want to come upstairs and practice."**

Ashitari growled deep in her throat, "No, but I'll practice on you, you fat swine." Some people stared at her, and made a note to never get on her bad side.

**"No, thanks," said Harry. "The poor toilet's never had anything as horrible as your head down it - it might be sick."**

Sirius guffawed along with the rest of the Maruader's and patted Harry on the back, "You got Lily's cheek." Lily and Harry both flushed.

**Then he ran, before Dudley could work out what he'd said. One day in July, Aunt Petunia took Dudley to London to buy his Smeltings uniform, leaving Harry at Mrs. Figg's. Mrs. Figg wasn't as bad as usual. It turned out she'd broken her leg tripping over one of her cats, and she didn't seem quite as fond of them as before. She let Harry watch television and gave him a bit of chocolate cake that tasted as though she'd had it for several years.**

**That evening, Dudley paraded around the living room for the family in his brand-new uniform. Smeltings' boys wore maroon tailcoats,** **orange knickerbockers,**

Lavender Brown squealed and fell off her bean bag. Many laughed at her expense but shockingly Ron helped her up. She giggled and sat back down, while the ginger went back to his seat flushed red.

**and flat straw hats called boaters.**

Kieran looked shocked at her best friends and mocked gasped, "THEY AREN'T A MYTH!" They also sent her mocked surpised looks before they collapsed giggling.

**They also carried knobby sticks, used for hitting each other while the teachers weren't looking. This was supposed to be good training for later life.**

Sprout's face screwed up and sniffed, "How could that be good training? They are practically teaching them to be abusive!"

**As he looked at Dudley in his new knickerbockers, Uncle Vernon said gruffly that it was the proudest moment of his life. Aunt Petunia burst into tears and said she couldn't believe it was her Ickle Dudleykins,**

Fred and George clutched onto each other in boisterous laughter as tears fell from their eyes. But then they paled and apologized to Ron for giving him a nickname that closely resembled it.

**he looked so handsome and grown-up. Harry didn't trust himself to speak. He thought two of his ribs might already have cracked from trying not to laugh.**

James looked sadly at his son, "You won't have this kind of life this time around, I promise you that." Harry's eyes brimmed with tears, but only one managed to escape.

**There was a horrible smell in the kitchen the next morning when Harry went in for breakfast. It seemed to be coming from a large metal tub in the sink. He went to have a look. The tub was full of what looked like dirty rags swimming in gray water.**

**"What's this?" he asked Aunt Petunia. Her lips tightened as they always did if he dared to ask a question.**

**"Your new school uniform," she said.**

**Harry looked in the bowl again.**

**"Oh," he said, "I didn't realize it had to be so wet."**

"Lily, you really need to fix your relationship with your sister." Lily glared at Kieran but only received a bored stare in return.

**"Don't be stupid," snapped Aunt Petunia. "I'm dying some of Dudley's old things gray for you. It'll look just like everyone else's when I've finished."**

**Harry seriously doubted this, but thought it best not to argue. He sat down at the table and tried not to think about how he was going to look on his first day at Stonewall High - like he was wearing bits of old elephant skin, probably.**

**Dudley and Uncle Vernon came in, both with wrinkled noses because of the smell from Harry's new uniform. Uncle Vernon opened his newspaper as usual and Dudley banged his Smelting stick, which he carried everywhere, on the table.**

**They heard the click of the mail slot and flop of letters on the doormat.**

**"Get the mail, Dudley," said Uncle Vernon from behind his paper.**

**"Make Harry get it."**

**"Get the mail, Harry."**

**"Make Dudley get it."**

Cedric Diggory grinned at him, "Good job Harry." They gotten to know each other after the Quidditch game after Cedric apologized for the unjustified winning.

**"Poke him with your Smelting stick, Dudley."**

Anger flashed in her honey gold eyes, "Don't you dare hurt him Dursley." Without realizing it she had stood up from her seat, but James pulled her back down next to him.

**Harry dodged the Smelting stick**

People let out a breath of air that they didn't realize that they were holding.

**and went to get the mail. Three things lay on the doormat: a postcard from Uncle Vernon's sister Marge, who was vacationing on the Isle of Wight, a brown envelope that looked like a bill, and - a letter for Harry.**

Lee Jordan, a friend of the twin's fist pumped the air with a whoop.

**Harry picked it up and stared at it, his heart twanging like a giant elastic band. No one, ever, in his whole life, had written to him. Who would?**

**He had no friends, no other relatives - he didn't belong to the library, so he'd never even got rude notes asking for books back. Yet here it was, a letter, addressed so plainly there could be no mistake:**

**Mr. H. Potter**

**The Cupboard under the Stairs**

**4 Privet Drive**

**Little Whinging Surrey**

Hermione muttered, "How do they get that right?" Remus answered her with a smile that made her flush, "They have this quill that magically writes everything down for them."

**The envelope was thick and heavy, made of yellowish parchment, and the address was written in emerald-green ink. There was no stamp.**

"Turn it around laddie!" Seamus joked.

**Turning the envelope over, his hand trembling, Harry saw a purple wax seal bearing a coat of arms; a lion,**

"Gryffindor!"

**an eagle,**

"Ravenclaw!"

**a badger,**

"Hufflepuff!"

**and a snake**

"Slytherin!"

**surrounding a large letter H.**

"Hogwarts!"

**"Hurry up, boy!" shouted Uncle Vernon from the kitchen. "What are you doing, checking for letter bombs." He chuckled at his own joke.**

That's not something you joke about; especially when the Weasley Twins get a spark in their eye that just spells trouble.

**Harry went back to the kitchen, still staring at his letter. He handed Uncle Vernon the bill and the postcard, sat down, and slowly began to open the yellow envelope.**

**Uncle Vernon ripped open the bill, snorted in disgust, and flipped over the postcard.**

**"Marge's ill," he informed Aunt Petunia. "Ate a funny whelk. -."**

Harry gave a snort, "She probably ate too many things in all. The size of the Dursley family line would confirm it!" People who have see the jiggly man shivered in disgust.

**"Dad!" said Dudley suddenly. "Dad, Harry's got something!"**

Sirius growled in anger, "You shut your whiny little trap right now!" Kieran looked at him in amusement and made it known to him that he was threatening a book.

**Harry was on the point of unfolding his letter, which was written on the same heavy parchment as the envelope, when it was jerked sharply out of his hand by Uncle Vernon.**

Many people in the hall, even the soon to be death eaters were furious. Nothing was more important at that age then to receive your first Hogwart's Letter.

**"That's mine!" said Harry, trying to snatch it back.**

**"Who'd be writing to you." sneered Uncle Vernon, **

Neville, showing a bit of confidence while unknowingly sitting next to his parent's, laughed, "Practically everyone in the whole Wizarding World!"

**shaking the letter open with one hand and glancing at it. His face went from red to green faster than a set of traffic lights. And it didn't stop there. Within seconds it was the grayish white of old porridge.**

". . .Tunny's latest creation I bet." Lily giggled.

**"P-P-Petunia!" he gasped.**

**Dudley tried to grab the letter to read it, but Uncle Vernon held it high out of his reach. Aunt Petunia took it curiously and read the first line. For a moment it looked as though she might faint. She clutched her throat and made a choking noise.**

Bellatrix and Narcissa shouted, "How dramatic can you get?"

**"Vernon! Oh my goodness - Vernon!" They stared at each other, seeming to have forgotten that Harry and Dudley were still in the room. Dudley wasn't used to being ignored. He gave his father a sharp tap on the head with his Smelting stick.**

Minerva scowled, "They should have raised him better than that." Lily spoke up, "Knowing my sister, she'd let him do anything he wanted." "She did."

**"I want to read that letter," he said loudly.**

"It's not yours to read." Padma Patil snipped at the book.

"**I want to read it," said Harry furiously, "as it's mine."**

Kieran grinned proudly and huffed, "Good job, Harry!" Harry smiled at her, and a dust of pink fell on her cheeks.

**"Get out, both of you," croaked Uncle Vernon, stuffing the letter back inside its envelope.**

**Harry didn't move.**

**"I WANT MY LETTER!" he shouted.**

"You got Lily's temper. . .perfect!" Sirius, Remus, and Peter bellowed.

**"Let me see it!" demanded Dudley.**

"It's not yours!" Surprisingly it was Draco who said this.

**"OUT!" roared Uncle Vernon, and he took both Harry and Dudley by the scruffs of their necks and threw them into the hall, slamming the kitchen door behind them. Harry and Dudley promptly had a furious but silent fight over who would listen at the keyhole; Dudley won, so Harry, his glasses dangling from one ear, lay flat on his stomach to listen at the crack between door and floor.**

**"Vernon," Aunt Petunia was saying in a quivering voice, "look at the address - how could they possibly know where he sleeps? You don't think they're watching the house?"**

**"Watching - spying - might be following us," muttered Uncle Vernon wildly.**

Ron scoffed, "Mental, that one."

**"But what should we do, Vernon? Should we write back? Tell them we don't want -" Harry could see Uncle Vernon's shiny black shoes pacing up and down the kitchen.**

**"No," he said finally. "No, we'll ignore it. If they don't get an answer. . . Yes, that's best . . . we won't do anything . . ."**

Flitwick, in his high squeaky voice, chipped, "Won't work! Nothing goes past Hogwarts!"

**"But -"**

**"I'm not having one in the house, Petunia! Didn't we swear when we took him in we'd stamp out that dangerous nonsense."**

The men in the room began to curse like sailors. Somewhere in London Vernon Dursley coughed up the food he was eating and shivered.

**That evening when he got back from work, Uncle Vernon did something he'd never done before; he visited Harry in his cupboard.**

Harry grimaced at the thought of being visited by him.

**"Where's my letter," said Harry, the moment Uncle Vernon had squeezed through the door. "Who's writing to me?"**

**"No one. It was addressed to you by mistake," said Uncle Vernon shortly. "I have burned it."**

James just couldn't believe what his own son (though the same age as him) lived through when he and Evans died. Ashitari looked at him in worry and grasped his hand with a barely noticeable blush on her face. He smiled

**"It was not a mistake," said Harry angrily, "it had my cupboard on it." **

Dumbledore's eyes dulled, oh the madness that he put Harry through it seemed.

**"SILENCE!" yelled Uncle Vernon, and a couple of spiders fell from the ceiling.**

Ron flinched and hid his pale face from everyone else's gaze.

**He took a few deep breaths and then forced his face into a smile, which looked quite painful.**

Harry rubbed his jaw at the memory, it was painful.

**"Er - yes, Harry - about this cupboard. Your aunt and I have been thinking... you're really getting a bit big for it... we think it might be nice if you moved into Dudley's second bedroom."**

"You should have given it to him in the first place, you bloody wanker!" Dean and Seamus shouted at the same, then they grinned at eachother.

**"Why?" said Harry.**

**"Don't ask questions!" snapped his uncle. "Take this stuff upstairs, now."**

Hermione and Lily bristled, "If he can't ask question's how do you expect him to learn?"

**The Dursleys' house had four bedrooms: one for Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, one for visitors (usually Uncle Vernon's sister, Marge), one where Dudley slept, and one where Dudley kept all the toys and things that wouldn't fit into his first bedroom.**

"THAT SPOILED, PIGHEADED BOY! How could he have two bloody rooms!"

**It only took Harry one trip upstairs to move everything he owned from the cupboard to this room. He sat down on the bed and stared around him. Nearly everything in here was broken. The month-old video camera was lying on top of a small, working tank Dudley had once driven over the next door neighbor's dog; in the corner was Dudley's first-ever television set, which he'd put his foot through when his favorite program had been cancelled; there was a large birdcage, which had once held a parrot that Dudley had swapped at school for a real air rifle, which was up on a shelf with the end all bent because Dudley had sat on it. Other shelves were full of books. They were the only things in the room that looked as though they'd never been touched.**

**From downstairs came the sound of Dudley bawling at his mother, "I don't want him in there. . . I need that room. . . make him get out . . ."**

"Hah, he only needs that room so he can gloat it in Harry's face." To say Sirius was angry was like saying a Hippogriff didn't take offense easily.

**Harry sighed and stretched out on the bed. Yesterday he'd have given anything to be up here. Today he'd rather be back in his cupboard with that letter than up here without it.**

Harry shook his head in mock shame, "I should have just read it out in the hall."

**Next morning at breakfast, everyone was rather quiet. Dudley was in shock. He'd screamed, whacked his father with his Smelting stick, been sick on purpose, kicked his mother, and thrown his tortoise through the greenhouse roof, and he still didn't have his room back. Harry was thinking about this time yesterday and bitterly wishing he'd opened the letter in the hall. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia kept looking at each other darkly.**

Marlene MicKinnon looked at Harry and Lily in curiosity, "Is everyone in that house so dramatic?"

"Yes, Tuney was always dramatic, but I don't know about the piggies." Harry confirmed that they were.

**When the mail arrived, Uncle Vernon, who seemed to be trying to be nice to Harry, made Dudley go and get it. They heard him banging things with his Smelting stick all the way down the hall. Then he shouted, "There's another one! 'Mr. H. Potter, The Smallest Bedroom, 4 Privet Drive -'"**

**With a strangled cry, Uncle Vernon leapt from his seat and ran down the hall, Harry right behind him. Uncle Vernon had to wrestle Dudley to the ground to get the letter from him, which was made difficult by the fact that Harry had grabbed Uncle Vernon around the neck from behind.**

Many cheered him on. Ash nearly jumping up and down in her seat.

**After a minute of confused fighting, in which everyone got hit a lot by the Smelting stick, Uncle Vernon straightened up, gasping for breath, with Harry's letter clutched in his hand.**

**"Go to your cupboard - I mean, your bedroom," he wheezed at Harry. "Dudley - go - just go."**

"Oh, so Harry has to go to his room while the brat gets to do whatever he wants? I'll chop your bloody-" But Fred was cut off as George smothered his mouth.

**Harry walked round and round his new room. Someone knew he had moved out of his cupboard and they seemed to know he hadn't received his first letter. Surely that meant they'd try again. And this time he'd make sure they didn't fail. He had a plan.**

"And knowing Harry's luck, the plan is going to fail." Hermione laughed, while Harry sent a playful glare her way. Remus thought it was music to his ears.

**The repaired alarm clock rang at six o'clock the next morning. Harry turned it off quickly and dressed silently. He mustn't wake the Dursleys. He stole downstairs without turning on any of the lights.**

**He was going to wait for the postman on the corner of Privet Drive and get the letters for number four first.**

**His heart hammered as he crept across the dark hall toward the front door - Harry leapt into the air; he'd trodden on something big and squashy on the doormat - something alive! Lights clicked on upstairs and to his horror Harry realized that the big, squashy something had been his uncle's face.**

Students and Teachers alike cheered but huffed at the same time at the irony that his Uncle would just so happen to be there.

**Uncle Vernon had been lying at the foot of the front door in a sleeping bag, clearly making sure that Harry didn't do exactly what he'd been trying to do. He shouted at Harry for about half an hour and then told him to go and make a cup of tea. Harry shuffled miserably off into the kitchen and by the time he got back, the mail had arrived, right into Uncle Vernon's lap.**

**Harry could see three letters addressed in green ink.**

"Hogwarts will just send double the more letters each and every time. She's like that you know." Flitwick said.

Harry nodded his head and patted his seat, "That she did." Many could feel the thrum of magic in the air, it was soothing.

**"I want -" he began, but Uncle Vernon was tearing the letters into pieces before his eyes. Uncle Vernon didn't go to work that day. He stayed at home and nailed up the mail slot.**

**"See," he explained to Aunt Petunia through a mouthful of nails, "if they can't deliver them they'll just give up."**

**"I'm not sure that'll work, Vernon."**

"Now she says something that makes sense, she bloody well should have said that in the beginning." McGonagall sniffed in her seat, Dumbledore chuckling to himself.

James grinned and continued on reading.

**"Oh, these people's minds work in strange ways, Petunia, they're not like you and me," said Uncle Vernon, trying to knock in a nail with the piece of fruitcake Aunt Petunia had just brought him.**

"She always did make the most horrifying fruit cake." Harry muttered to himself.

**On Friday, no less than twelve letters arrived for Harry. As they couldn't go through the mail slot they had been pushed under the door, slotted through the sides, and a few even forced through the small window in the downstairs bathroom.**

**Uncle Vernon stayed at home again. After burning all the letters, he got out a hammer and nails and boarded up the cracks around the front and back doors so no one could go out. He hummed "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" as he worked, and jumped at small noises.**

"He's going mental!"

**On Saturday, things began to get out of hand. Twenty-four letters to Harry found their way into the house, rolled up and hidden inside each of the two dozen eggs that their very confused milkman had handed Aunt Petunia through the living room window. While Uncle Vernon made furious telephone calls to the post office and the dairy trying to find someone to complain to, Aunt Petunia shredded the letters in her food processor.**

**"Who on earth wants to talk to you this badly." Dudley asked Harry in amazement.**

"The whole wizarding world, you doofus!" Kieran sneered.

**On Sunday morning, Uncle Vernon sat down at the breakfast table looking tired and rather ill, but happy.**

"Won't last long." Ron snickered.

**"No post on Sundays," he reminded them cheerfully as he spread marmalade on his newspapers, "no damn letters today -" Something came whizzing down the kitchen chimney as he spoke and caught him sharply on the back of the head. Next moment, thirty or forty letters came pelting out of the fireplace like bullets. The Dursleys ducked, but Harry leapt into the air trying to catch one.**

"Should have just grabbed one from the ground." Sirius grinned. Harry laughed along with many others.

It was true, he should have. Would of made things a lot easier.

**"Out! OUT!" Uncle Vernon seized Harry around the waist and threw him into the hall.**

James nearly shrieked, "HE COULD HAVE GOT HURT!"

**When Aunt Petunia and Dudley had run out with their arms over their faces, Uncle Vernon slammed the door shut. They could hear the letters still streaming into the room, bouncing off the walls and floor.**

"They'll stop soon enough." Slughorn waved his hand around exaggeratedly.

**"That does it," said Uncle Vernon, trying to speak calmly but pulling great tufts out of his moustache at the same time. "I want you all back here in five minutes ready to leave. We're going away. Just pack some clothes. No arguments!" He looked so dangerous with half his moustache missing that no one dared argue. Ten minutes later they had wrenched their way through the boarded-up doors and were in the car, speeding toward the highway.**

Madame Hooch grew read, "That's dangerous. Not even Quidditch players act that restless."

**Dudley was sniffling in the back seat; his father had hit him round the head for holding them up while he tried to pack his television, VCR, and computer in his sports bag.**

"Of course that wouldn't work, well unless if you were a wizard." Draco sneered at the book.

**They drove. And they drove. Even Aunt Petunia didn't dare ask where they were going. Every now and then Uncle Vernon would take a sharp turn and drive in the opposite direction for a while. "Shake'em off... shake 'em off," he would mutter whenever he did this.**

The trio's eyes were practically brimming with tears as others stared at them oddly.

**They didn't stop to eat or drink all day. By nightfall Dudley was howling. He'd never had such a bad day in his life. He was hungry, he'd missed five television programs he'd wanted to see, and he'd never gone so long without blowing up an alien on his computer.**

Many raised eyebrows at this, how can you blow up an alien on some box? And what's and Alien!?

**Uncle Vernon stopped at last outside a gloomy-looking hotel on the outskirts of a big city. Dudley and Harry shared a room with twin beds and damp, musty sheets. Dudley snored but Harry stayed awake, sitting on the windowsill, staring down at the lights of passing cars and wondering . . .**

**They ate stale cornflakes and cold tinned tomatoes on toast for breakfast the next day. They had just finished when the owner of the hotel came over to their table.**

"Uh-oh, this doesn't seem good." Remus muttered to himself.

**"'Scuse me, but is one of you Mr. H. Potter. Only I got about an 'undred of these at the front desk." She held up a letter so they could read the green ink address:**

**Mr. H. Potter**

**Room 17**

**Railview Hotel**

**Cokeworth**

**Harry made a grab for the letter but Uncle Vernon knocked his hand out of the way. The woman stared.**

"Should have gave the letter to Harry right away, and question on Vernon's behavior." Narcissa scowled.

**"I'll take them," said Uncle Vernon, standing up quickly and following her from the dining room.**

**"Wouldn't it be better just to go home, dear." Aunt Petunia suggested timidly, hours later, but Uncle Vernon didn't seem to hear her. **

"She needs to grow a backbone." Ash coughed in her hand. Kieran looked at her curiously but didn't say anything.

**Exactly what he was looking for, none of them knew. He drove them into the middle of a forest, got out, looked around, shook his head, got back in the car, and off they went again. The same thing happened in the middle of a plowed field, halfway across a suspension bridge, and at the top of a multilevel parking garage.**

**"Daddy's gone mad, hasn't he." Dudley asked Aunt Petunia dully late that afternoon.**

The two Zabini brothers laughed at the same time, but stopped and stared at one another. Blaine was shoved away when Ash noticed him leaning on her legs. James smirked down at him before continuing.

**Uncle Vernon had parked at the coast, locked them all inside the car, and disappeared.**

**It started to rain. Great drops beat on the roof of the car. Dudley snivelled.**

**"It's Monday," he told his mother. "The Great Humberto's on tonight. I want to stay somewhere with a television. "**

**Monday. This reminded Harry of something. If it was Monday - and you could usually count on Dudley to know the days the week, because of television - then tomorrow, Tuesday, was Harry's eleventh birthday.**

"HAPPY BIRHTDAY!" Harry blushed but said, "It's not my Birthday yet!"

**Of course, his birthdays were never exactly fun - last year, the Dursleys had given him a coat hanger and a pair of Uncle Vernon's old socks.**

"That will change!" James and the Maruaders got a determined look in their eye.

**Still, you weren't eleven every day.**

**Uncle Vernon was back and he was smiling. He was also carrying a long, thin package and didn't answer Aunt Petunia when she asked what he'd bought.**

**"Found the perfect place!" he said. "Come on! Everyone out!" It was very cold outside the car. Uncle Vernon was pointing at what looked like a large rock way out at sea. Perched on top of the rock was the most miserable little shack you could imagine. One thing was certain; there was no television in there.**

"Is that all that Dudley thinks about?" Peter asks shyly.

Harry glared at him before remembering that Peter hadn't betrayed anybody yet so answered him, "No, he also thinks about food."

**"Storm forecast for tonight!" said Uncle Vernon gleefully, clapping his hands together. "And this gentleman's kindly agreed to lend us his boat!" A toothless old man came ambling up to them, pointing, with a rather wicked grin, at an old row boat bobbing in the iron-gray water below them.**

**"I've already got us some rations," said Uncle Vernon, "so all aboard!" It was freezing in the boat. Icy sea spray and rain crept down their necks and a chilly wind whipped their faces. After what seemed like hours they reached the rock, where Uncle Vernon, slipping and sliding, led the way to the broken-down house.**

Madame Pomphry who had just entered the hall, looked affronted at the conditions, "They could all get sick!" Before conjuring up a nice plush chair and settling down in it.

**The inside was horrible; it smelled strongly of seaweed, the wind whistled through the gaps in the wooden walls, and the fireplace was damp and empty. There were only two rooms.**

**Uncle Vernon's rations turned out to be a bag of chips each and four bananas.**

"Unhealthy, and he calls that raitions!" The healer turning purple in the face."

**He tried to start a fire but the empty chip bags just smoked and shrivelled up.**

**"Could do with some of those letters now, eh." he said cheerfully.**

"Stop rubbing it in the boys face, you nasty (unmeantionable word)" said Ash, earning many surprised looks from all around, she was normally the nicest most cheerful girl you could find.

**He was in a very good mood. Obviously he thought nobody stood a chance of reaching them here in a storm to deliver mail. Harry privately agreed, though the thought didn't cheer him up at all.**

**As night fell, the promised storm blew up around them. Spray from the high waves splattered the walls of the hut and a fierce wind rattled the filthy windows. Aunt Petunia found a few mouldy blankets in the second room and made up a bed for Dudley on the moth-eaten sofa. She and Uncle Vernon went off to the lumpy bed next door, and Harry was left to find the softest bit of floor he could and to curl up under the thinnest, most ragged blanket.**

"If only you had done accidental magic then, you would have been just fine."

**The storm raged more and more ferociously as the night went on. Harry couldn't sleep. He shivered and turned over, trying to get comfortable, his stomach rumbling with hunger. Dudley's snores were drowned by the low rolls of thunder that started near midnight. The lighted dial of Dudley's watch, which was dangling over the edge of the sofa on his fat wrist, told Harry he'd be eleven in ten minutes' time. He lay and watched his birthday tick nearer, wondering if the Dursleys would remember at all, wondering where the letter writer was now.**

"Currently on Dumbledores shelf." Minerva said wisely, not noticing the gleams on the pranksters faces. She should have never said that.

**Five minutes to go. Harry heard something creak outside. He hoped the roof wasn't going to fall in, although he might be warmer if it did.**

**Four minutes to go. Maybe the house in Privet Drive would be so full of letters when they got back that he'd be able to steal one somehow.**

The Proffessors sighed in exasperation but knew that he knew nothing of magic at the moment.

**Three minutes to go. Was that the sea, slapping hard on the rock like that? And what was that funny crunching noise? Was the rock crumbling into the sea?**

"Nope." Harry grinned at a confused half giant.

**One minute to go and he'd be eleven. Thirty seconds... twenty... ten... nine - maybe he'd wake Dudley up, just to annoy him-**

"Should have done it!" Sirius crowed.

James grinned at the next line and took a nice, deep breath. Ash noticed and covered her ears.

**- three... two... one...**

**BOOM.**

The winced when James screamed. Minerva scowled at him but motioned for him to go on.

**The whole shack shivered and Harry sat bolt upright, staring at the door. Someone was outside, knocking to come in.**

"Well that's the chapter." James said.

Dumbledore stood up in his chair and announced, "We shall take a break, and then proceed. You may all do as you like for the hour."

Students stood up and stretched and began making their merry way out of the hall.

Ash, Harry, Kieran, Hermione, and Ron crowded around eachother before Harry was tapped on his shoulder.


	4. Break!

**I do not own this book, or the continuous 6 books after that. Thank you for informing me of the rules, and I sincerely apologize for not putting it up immediately. Oh, and I only own Ashitari, who's nickname is Ash, while Kieran belongs to AngelsCryInBlood, my best friend!**

**Thank you!**

**ShineBrightGranger **

Harry turned around, while the rest of his friends stood next to him in defense, "What do you lot want?" Harry spoke, eyes glinting dangerously.

Draco and his family, since he told them earlier, stood in front of them all with blank expressions.

"Look, Potter. I know I've been a right git in the past, but with these books. . .I think we are just gonna have to put that behind us." They scanned his face for any lies, but saw none so far.

They shared a look and came to a decision, Harry stepped up and grasped Draco's hand, "We accept."

The Malfoys, Blacks, and Lestranges gave them curt nods before heading off to do their own thing.

Everyone stared at each other before collapsing in giggles. It was just hilarious that it was Draco who asked for the truth first.

After calming down, they exited the castle and went to the Black Lake. The Zabini brothers were talking by a tree about their father, though that conversation is private.

"I heard the teachers were thinking about keeping us in our classes, though I don't see a point in all that. You know since we will be thinking about those books." Hermione said. Her gaze was roaming the grounds before landing on Remus Lupin who was sitting with his friends. He looked so young.

Remus felt somebody watching him and looked around before clashing eyes with Hermione, she blushed and turned around quickly.

Sirius smirked at his friend and they returned to their conversation, "So what do you think about the time travelers?"

James smirked and said, "I like the Tari girl, she got spunk in her." Sirius gave a snort, "You said the same thing about Lily too. But look where she ended up, next to Snivellus the grease wonder."

James eye twitched and wacked Sirius Gibbs style, well not that he knew that. Remus and Peter watched in an amused state.

Peter then asked Remus, "So Moony, what's with the bushy haired girl?" A light splatter of pink found itself on the book smart Marauders cheeks and he quickly tried to cover it up.

"Nothing's going on, Wormtail."

James and Sirius immediately forgot their argument and they began teasing everyones favorite were wolf.

Dumbledores voice resounded through out the area and everyone got the message before he began to talk. "Everyone come back to the Great Hall, we shall continue the reading from where we left off."

Everyone picked themselves up and went back inside the castle. Ash, or as James called her-Tari found herself walking next to the Marauder and they began a conversation, though for some reason James kept on running his hand through his unmanageable locks.

"So, why did you enter Hogwarts in the middle of your third year? What house are you in?" He asked the last question since he noticed that neither her nor Kieran were wearing any house colors.

"Well, Beauxboxtons just wasn't right for me I guess, and Dumbles told us to wait until our fourth year to get officially sorted into a house."

James nodded knowingly, "Well, hope to see you in Gryffindor-" He sent her a sly grin, "Tari~"

The girl flushed in anger and embarrassment, she took out her wand and began firing spells at him, "DON'T CALL ME TARI!"


	5. Chapter 5

Once everyone was settled down Hermione took the book from the Head Table and began to read.

CHAPTER FOUR - THE KEEPER OF THE KEYS.

All the students glanced up to a blushing Hagrid.

BOOM.

Remus was glad that she didn't scream when he saw that it was capitalized, the Maruaders sent him teasing looks from where they were sitting.

They knocked again.

"It's definitely Hagrid, only he could knock that loud!" obviously Lavender had to put something in. Ronald was the only one to pay any attention to her.

Dudley jerked awake. "Where's the cannon?" he said stupidly. There was a crash behind them and Uncle Vernon came skidding into the room. He was holding a rifle in his hands - now they knew what had been in the long, thin**package**he had brought with them.

Just then Molly and Arthur Weasley, along with Bill and Charlie entered and she heard the mention of the gun. "HOW DARE HE!"

"Who's there?" he shouted. "I warn you - I'm armed!"

James glanced down at his arm and waved it around, "So am I!" Ash rolled her eyes at him and said, "It means that he has a weapon." James, understanding what that meant now, glared furiously at the book.

There was a pause. Then - SMASH! The door was hit with such force that it swung clean off its hinges and with a deafening crash landed flat on the floor.

A giant of a man was standing in the doorway. His face was almost completely hidden by a long, shaggy mane of hair and a wild, tangled beard, but you could make out his eyes, glinting like black beetles under all the hair.

Hagrid flushed a little bit more, many students chuckled good heartedly at him.

The giant squeezed his way into the hut, stooping so that his head just brushed the ceiling. He bent down, picked up the door, and fitted it easily back into its**frame**. The noise of the storm outside dropped a little. He turned to look at them all.

"Couldn't make us a cup o' tea, could yeh. It's not been an easy journey..."

"I don't think they are going to offer you a cuppa Hagrid." Percy said 'wisely'.

He strode over to the sofa where Dudley sat frozen with fear.

"Budge up, yeh great lump," said the stranger.

Dudley squeaked and ran to hide behind his mother, who was crouching, terrified, behind Uncle Vernon.

Lucius along with Draco, snorted in amusement.

"An' here's Harry!" said the giant.

Harry looked up into the fierce, wild, shadowy face and saw that the beetle eyes were crinkled in a smile.

Harry flushed at the description that he gave Hagrid, but the giant merely smiled at him.

"Las' time I saw you, you was only a baby," said the giant. "Yeh look a lot like yet dad, but yeh've got yet mom's eyes."

A tear ran down Harry's face and he choked out, "He's the first one to ever tell me that." Kieran along with Sirius wrapped him in a hug as Hermione gently smiled at him.

Uncle Vernon made a funny rasping noise. "I demand that you leave at once, sir!" he said. "You are breaking and entering!"

"Ah, shut up, Dursley, yeh great prune," said the giant;

Everyone in the hall stood up in applause for the Giant. Cat calls and wolf whistles rang everywhere.

he reached over the back of the sofa, jerked the gun out of Uncle Vernon's hands, bent it into a knot as easily as if it had been made of rubber, and threw it into a corner of the room.

Calls once again rang out.

Uncle Vernon made another funny noise, like a mouse being trodden on.

"Anyway - Harry," said the giant, turning his back on the Dursleys, "a very happy birthday to yeh. Got summat fer yeh here - I mighta sat on it at some point, but it'll taste all right." From an inside pocket of his black overcoat he pulled a slightly squashed box. Harry opened it with trembling fingers. Inside was a large, sticky chocolate cake with Happy Birthday Harry written on it in green icing.

Peter moaned in agony, "When will we eat again."

Harry looked up at the giant. He meant to say thank you, but the words got lost on the way to his mouth, and what he said instead was, "Who are you."

The giant chuckled. "True, I haven't introduced meself. Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts." He held out an enormous hand and shook Harry's whole arm.

"What about that tea then, eh." he said, rubbing his hands together. "I'd not say no ter summat stronger if yeh've got it, mind."

"Hagrid you've got to fix that drinking problem of yours." Dumbledore said with a worried voice. "I try te' proffeser', but it down work for meh." The half giant said solemnly.

His eyes fell on the empty grate with the shriveled chip bags in it and he snorted. He bent down over the fireplace; they couldn't see what he was doing but when he drew back a second later, there was a roaring fire there. It filled the whole damp hut with flickering light and Harry felt the warmth wash over him as though he'd sunk into a hot bath.

"What a lovely description you made Harry!" Kieran spoke with admiration in her voice.

The giant sat back down on the sofa, which sagged under his weight, and began taking all sorts of things out of the pockets of his coat: a copper kettle, a squashy package of sausages, a poker, a teapot, several chipped mugs, and a bottle of some amber liquid that he took a swig from before starting to make tea.

Soon the hut was full of the sound and smell of sizzling sausage. Nobody said a thing while the giant was working, but as he slid the first six fat, juicy, slightly burnt sausages from the poker, Dudley fidgeted a little. Uncle Vernon said sharply, "Don't touch anything he gives you, Dudley."

The giant chuckled darkly. "Yet great puddin' of a son don' need fattenin' anymore, Dursley, don' worry."

The Weasley twins began to cackle against eachother, until they fell on the floor.

He passed the sausages to Harry, who was so hungry he had never tasted anything so wonderful, but he still couldn't take his eyes off the giant.

Finally, as nobody seemed about to explain anything, he said, "I'm sorry, but I still don't really know who you are."

Molly nodded her head in approval, "Good job, dear." Sirius scowled at her, though nobody understood why.

The giant took a gulp of tea and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Call me Hagrid," he said, "everyone does. An' like I told yeh, I'm Keeper of Keys at Hogwarts - yeh'll know all about Hogwarts, o' course."

"Er - no," said Harry.

"That's going to shock him-"Remus said.

Hagrid looked shocked.

The two grinned at each other, and Hermione smiled softly at the teen werewolf before continuing.

"Sorry?" barked Hagrid, turning to stare at the Dursleys, who shrank back into the shadows. "It's them as should be sorry! I knew yeh weren't gettin' yer letters but I never thought yeh wouldn't even know abou' Hogwarts, fer cryin' out loud! Did yeh never wonder where yet parents learned it all?"

"All what?" asked Harry.

"ALL WHAT?" Hagrid thundered.

"Now wait jus' one second!" He had leapt to his feet. In his anger he seemed to fill the whole hut.

First Years shivered in their seats, "That would be frightening."

The Dursleys were cowering against the wall.

"Do you mean ter tell me," he growled at the Dursleys, "that this boy - this boy! - knows nothin' abou' - about ANYTHING?"

Harry thought this was going a bit far. He had been to school, after all, and his marks weren't bad. "I know some things," he said. "I can, you know, do math and stuff."

But Hagrid simply waved his hand and said, "About our world, I mean. Your world. My world. Yer parents' world."

"What world?" Hagrid looked as if he was about to explode.

"Uh, oh-I've never seen Hagrid explode before!" Some second year Ravenclaws chittered in a corner, Dumbledore began to think that this place was far too crowded and decided to do something about it later.

"DURSLEY!" he boomed.

Uncle Vernon, who had gone very pale, whispered something that sounded like "Mimblewimble." Hagrid stared wildly at Harry.

The giant scratched the back of his neck sheepishly.

"But yeh must know about yet mom and dad," he said. "I mean, they're famous. You're famous."

"My - my mom and dad weren't famous, were they?"

Snape, the older one, looked shocked at the book. Surly Petunia wouldn't be that cruel to leave out even something as important as that.

"Yeh don' know... yeh don' know..." Hagrid ran his fingers through his hair, fixing Harry with a bewildered stare.

"Yeh don' know what yeh are." he said finally.

Uncle Vernon suddenly found his voice.

Ashton and Kieran both at the same time hissed, "Should have never had one in the first place!" They blinked and grinned cheekily at eachother.

"Stop!" he commanded. "Stop right there, sir! I forbid you to tell the boy anything!"

A braver man than Vernon Dursley would have quailed under the furious look Hagrid now gave him; when Hagrid spoke, his every syllable trembled with rage.

"You never told him. Never told him what was in the letter Dumbledore left fer him. I was there! I saw Dumbledore leave it, Dursley! An' you've kept it from him all these years."

"Kept what from me?" said Harry eagerly.

"STOP! I FORBID YOU!" yelled Uncle Vernon in panic.

Hagrid gave a mighty snort, "Won't work."

Aunt Petunia gave a gasp of horror.

"Dramatic."

"Ah, go boil yet heads, both of yeh," said Hagrid.

Ash yanked the book out of Hermiones hands, "OOOOH, I WANNA SAY THIS PART!" Hermione just out right laughed at her friend.

"Harry - yer a wizard."

Cheers and howls rang through the walls, of course most of them were from Muggle borns and people raised by muggles. Ashton gave back the book, blushing a bit in embarrassment as James was chuckling at her.

There was silence inside the hut. Only the sea and the whistling wind could be heard.

"- a what?" gasped Harry.

There goes Fred and George again, Molly shook her head fondly at her two boys.

"A wizard, o' course," said Hagrid, sitting back down on the sofa, which groaned and sank even lower, "an' a thumpin' good'un, I'd say, once yeh've been trained up a bit. With a mum an' dad like yours, what else would yeh be. An' I reckon it's abou' time yeh read yer letter."

Everyone leaned in excited to hear, once again, a Hogwarts letter.

Harry stretched out his hand at last to take the yellowish en-velope, addressed in emerald green too!

Mr. H. Potter

The Floor

Hut-on-the-Rock, The Sea.

He pulled out the letter and read:

HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY

Headmaster: ALBUS DUMBLEDORE (Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chief. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)

Students cheered for their headmaster, as his achievements were read out loud.

Dear Mr. Potter,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall,

Deputy Headmistress

"The letters never change, Minnie!" Sirius called up to the Head table, Minerva flushed in embarrassment and made a note to at least change it a little the next time.

Questions exploded inside Harry's head like fireworks and he couldn't decide which to ask first. After a few minutes he stammered, "What does it mean, they await my owl?"

"Oh, Harry!"

"Gallopin' Gorgons, that reminds me," said Hagrid, clapping a hand to his forehead with enough force to knock over a cart horse, and from yet another pocket inside his overcoat he pulled an owl - a real, live, rather ruffled-looking owl - a long quill, and a roll of parchment.

With his tongue between his teeth he scribbled a note that Harry could read upside down:

_Dear Professor Dumbledore,_

_Given Harry his letter._

Taking him to buy his things tomorrow.

Weather's horrible. Hope you're well.

Hagrid

"Oh, Hagrid. I hope you never change." Pomona Sprout said fondly.

Hagrid rolled up the note, gave it to the owl, which clamped it in its beak, went to the door, and threw the owl out into the storm. Then he came back and sat down as though this was as normal as talking on the telephone.

Harry realized his mouth was open and closed it quickly.

Hermione paused and gave a giggle.

"Where was I?" said Hagrid, but at that moment, Uncle Vernon, still ashen-faced but looking very angry, moved into the firelight.

"He's not going," he said.

Hagrid grunted.

"I'd like ter see a great Muggle like you stop him," he said.

"Is that Sarcasm I sense in the pages?" James said in a sly tone.

"A what?" said Harry, interested.

Hermione opened her mouth to explain, but stopped when she received some annoyed looks. Remus glared at them and motioned for her to continue.

"A Muggle," said Hagrid, "it's what we call non-magic folk like them. An' it's your bad luck you grew up in a family o' the biggest Muggles I ever laid eyes on."

The twins roared in laughter once again.

"We swore when we took him in we'd put a stop to that rubbish," said Uncle Vernon, "swore we'd stamp it out of him! Wizard indeed!"

"You knew?" said Harry. "You knew I'm a - a wizard."

"Knew!" shrieked Aunt Petunia suddenly. "Knew! Of course we knew! How could you not be, my dratted sister being what she was. Oh, she got a letter just like that and disappeared off to that-that school-and came home every vacation with her pockets full of frog spawn, turningteacups into rats. I was the only one who saw her for what she was - a freak!"

Severus sprang from his chair, face red in fury, "Lily is not a FREAK!"

The red head quickly pulled him down, though there were tears streaming down her face as well, many looked at her in pity.

"But for my mother and father, oh no, it was Lily this and Lily that, they were proud of having a witch in the family!" She stopped to draw a deep breath and then went ranting on. It seemed she had been wanting to say all this for years.

The red head once again flinched and snuggled up against Severus, though by the light flush on his face told wonders.

"Then she met that Potter at school and they left and got married and had you, and of course I knew you'd be just the same, just as strange, just as - as - abnormal - and then, if you please, she went and got herself blown up and we got landed with you!"

James looked outraged, "You should be blessed you giraffe!" Him and Sirius were writing down a list of pranks to play on the dursleys in the future.

Harry had gone very white. As soon as he found his voice he said, "Blown up. You told me they died in a car crash!"

The hall was silent as tears streamed down Harrys face, then everything turned chaotic.

"CAR CRASH!" roared Hagrid, jumping up so angrily that the Dursleys scuttled back to their corner. "How could a car crash kill Lily an' James Potter? It's an outrage! A scandal! Harry Potter not knowin' his own story when every kid in our world knows his name!"

James and the Maruaders, including Harry grinned at Hagrid, "Thanks Hagrid!"

"But why? What happened?" Harry asked urgently.

The anger faded from Hagrid's face. He looked suddenly anxious.

"I never expected this," he said, in a low, worried voice. "I had no idea, when Dumbledore told me there might be trouble gettin' hold of yeh, how much yeh didn't know. Ah, Harry, I don' know if I'm the right person ter tell yeh - but someone's gotta - yeh can't go off ter Hogwarts not knowin'." He threw a dirty look at the Dursleys.

"Well, its best yeh know as much as I can tell yeh - mind, I can't tell yeh everythin', it's a great myst'ry, parts of it..." He sat down, stared into the fire for a few seconds, and then said, "It begins, I suppose, with - with a person called - but it's incredible yeh don't know his name, everyone in our world knows -"

"Who?"

"Well - I don' like sayin' the name if I can help it. No one does."

Many looked down in their seats, they only would say his name if they were forced to, Harry, Hermione and Ron glared at everyone in annoyance.

"Why not?"

"Golupin' gargoyles, Harry, people are still scared. Blimey, this is difficult. See, there was this wizard who went... bad. As bad as you could go. Worse. Worse than worse. His name was..." Hagrid gulped, but no words came out.

"Voldemort." Harry and Hermione stated at the same time, everyone but Dumbledore flinched at the name-though Ashton and Kieran didn't do it as much.

"Could you write it down?" Harry suggested.

Hagrid sighed heavily and Harry sent him an apology but he just brushed it off.

"Nah -can't spell it. All right - Voldemort."

Student's including the professors stood up and gave cheers that broke the ceiling. Dumbledore quickly fixed that and they continued.

Hagrid shuddered. "Don' make me say it again. Anyway, this - this wizard, about twenty years ago now, started lookin' fer followers. Got 'em, too - some were afraid, some just wanted a bit o' his power, 'cause he was gettin' himself power, all right."

Sirius scowled darkly, his family was like that, Regulus glanced at his brother and sighed dejectedly to the ground.

"Dark days, Harry. Didn't know who ter trust, didn't dare get friendly with strange wizards or witches... terrible things happened. He was takin' over. 'Course, some stood up to him - an' he killed 'em. Horribly. One o' the only safe places left was Hogwarts. Reckon Dumbledore's the only one You-Know-Who was afraid of. Didn't dare try takin' the school, not jus' then, anyway."

"Now, yer mum an' dad were as good a witch an' wizard as I ever knew. Head boy an' girl at Hogwarts in their day!

James gave a woop in his seat, "I get Head Boy!" The students in James year looked at the professors were mad, well a few of them were.

Suppose the myst'ry is why You-Know-Who never tried to get 'em on his side before... probably knew they were too close ter Dumbledore ter want anythin' ter do with the Dark Side."

"Maybe he thought he could persuade 'em... maybe he just wanted 'em outta the way. All anyone knows is, he turned up in the village where you was all living, on Halloween ten years ago. You was just a year old. He came ter yer house an' - an' -" Hagrid suddenly pulled out a very dirty, spotted handkerchief and blew his nose with a sound like a foghorn.

"Sorry," he said. "But it's that sad - knew yer mum an' dad, an' nicer people yeh couldn't find - anyway..."

"You-Know-Who killed 'em.

Growls and shouts of profanities sprung around the room, even some of the not so future deatheaters were shouting at the book.

An' then - an' this is the real myst'ry of the thing - he tried to kill you, too. Wanted ter make a clean job of it, I suppose, or maybe he just liked killin' by then. But he couldn't do it. Never wondered how you got that mark on yer forehead. That was no ordinary cut. That's what yeh get when a powerful, evil curse touches yeh - took care of yer mum an' dad an' yer house, even - but it didn't work on you, an' that's why yer famous, Harry."

"Sadly."

"No one ever lived after he decided ter kill 'em, no one except you, an' he'd killed some o' the best witches an' wizards of the age - the McKinnons, the Bones, the Prewetts

Sad families looked at eachother in horror. This was really going to happen to them.

- an' you was only a baby, an' you lived."

Younger student's once again gazed at Harry in awe.

Something very painful was going on in Harry's mind. As Hagrid's story came to a close, he saw again the blinding flash of green light, more clearly than he had ever remembered it before - and he remembered something else, for the first time in his life: a high, cold, cruel laugh.

"Oh, Harry." Hermione sighed sadly, its horrible that her brother had to go through this, and they couldn't do anything.

Hagrid was watching him sadly.

"Took yeh from the ruined house myself, on Dumbledore's orders. Brought yeh ter this lot..."

The room turned tense at the reminder.

"Load of old tosh," said Uncle Vernon. Harry jumped; he had almost forgotten that the Dursleys were there.

Colin Creevey, now a third year, squeaked out, "How could you forget!?"

Uncle Vernon certainly seemed to have got back his courage. He was glaring at Hagrid and his fists were clenched.

"Now, you listen here, boy," he snarled, "I accept there's something strange about you, probably nothing a good beating wouldn't have cured-

Hermione paused, her face turning purple. She then did something no one thought she could do. She threw the book away from her and grabbed her wand. "Dimidium transmutationis!" Suddenly a screen appeared in front of everybody, showing the Dursley family in the future eating peacefully, until suddenly Petunia turned into a Giraffe, though on her neck and ears changed, while Vernon transformed into a Gorilla.

Remus and Minerva looked at her in pride and awe. Harry and the rest of the hall were half scared half amused.

Picking up the book, she began again.

- and as for all this about your parents, well, they were weirdos, no denying it, and the world's better off without them in my opinion - asked for all they got, getting mixed up with these wizarding types - just what I expected, always knew they'd come to a sticky end -"

But at that moment, Hagrid leapt from the sofa and drew a battered pink umbrella from inside his coat. Pointing this at Uncle Vernon like a sword, he said, "I'm warning you, Dursley -I'm warning you - one more word... "

In danger of being speared on the end of an umbrella by a bearded giant, Uncle Vernon's courage failed again; he flattened himself against the wall and fell silent.

Harry, meanwhile, still had questions to ask, hundreds of them.

"But what happened to Vol-, sorry - I mean, You-Know-Who?"

"A fear of a name-" but Dumbledore was cut off by groans.

"Good question, Harry. Disappeared. Vanished. Same night he tried ter kill you. Makes yeh even more famous. That's the biggest myst'ry, see... he was gettin' more an' more powerful - why'd he go?

"Some say he died. Codswallop, in my opinion. Dunno if he had enough human left in him to die. Some say he's still out there, bidin' his time, like, but I don' believe it.

"You don't know how much that was true." Harry, Ron, and Hermione shivered in their seats.

People who was on his side came back ter ours. Some of 'em came outta kinda trances. Don' reckon they could've done if he was comin' back."

Ron coughed in to his fist and said, "Malfoy's!" They playfully glared at him.

"Most of us reckon he's still out there somewhere but lost his powers. Too weak to carry on. 'Cause somethin' about you finished him, Harry. There was somethin' goin' on that night he hadn't counted on - I dunno what it was, no one does - but somethin' about you stumped him, all right."

Hagrid looked at Harry with warmth and respect blazing in his eyes, but Harry, instead of feeling pleased and proud, felt quite sure there had been a horrible mistake.

A wizard? Him? How could he possibly be? He'd spent his life being clouted by Dudley, and bullied by Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon; if he was really a wizard, why hadn't they been turned into warty toads every time they'd tried to lock him in his cupboard. If he'd once defeated the greatest sorcerer in the world, how come Dudley had always been able to kick him around like a football?

"YOU ARE NEVER GOING BACK THERE, EVER AGAIN!" Kieran screeched, her heart shaped face flushed purple in anger. Harry beamed up at her.

"Hagrid," he said quietly, "I think you must have made a mistake. I don't think I can be a wizard." To his surprise, Hagrid chuckled.

"Not a wizard, eh. Never made things happen when you was scared or angry." Harry looked into the fire. Now he came to think about it... every odd thing that had ever made his aunt and uncle furious with him had happened when he, Harry, had been upset or angry... chased by Dudley's gang, he had somehow found himself out of their reach... dreading going to school with that ridiculous haircut, he'd managed to make it grow back... and the very last time Dudley had hit him, hadn't he got his revenge, without even realizing he was doing it. Hadn't he set a boa constrictor on him?

Harry looked back at Hagrid, smiling, and saw that Hagrid was positively beaming at him.

Like he was now.

"See." said Hagrid. "Harry Potter, not a wizard - you wait, you'll be right famous at Hogwarts."

Harry groaned much to the amusement of everyone.

But Uncle Vernon wasn't going to give in without a fight.

"Stubborn git." Ash scowled fiercely at the book, Blake sat next to them and wrapped his arm around her, he might as well start friendly. James glared at his arm, wanting it to combust in flames. She didn't seem to notice though, she just snuggled in.

"Haven't I told you he's not going." he hissed. "He's going to Stonewall High and he'll be grateful for it. I've read those letters and he needs all sorts of rubbish - spell books and wands and -"

"It would a lot less painless for you if you just got it done and over with." Dean Thomas shouted from his seat next to Seamus.

"If he wants ter go, a great Muggle like you won't stop him," growled Hagrid. "Stop Lily an' James Potter' s son goin' ter Hogwarts! Yer mad."

James nodded in agreement and Lily nodded to, though she didn't really agree with her lastname being Potter.

"His name's been down ever since he was born. He's off ter the finest school of witchcraft and wizardry in the world. Seven years there and he won't know himself. He'll be with youngsters of his own sort, fer a change, an' he'll be under the greatest headmaster Hogwarts ever had Albus Dumbled-"

Harry shook his head, this would shock everyone. Kieran laughed.

"I AM NOT PAYING FOR SOME CRACKPOT OLD FOOL TO TEACH HIM MAGIC TRICKS!" yelled Uncle Vernon.

"Shoudn't of done that laddy!" Seamus Finnigun shouted from the other end of the hall.

But he had finally gone too far.

Hagrid seized his umbrella and whirled it over his head, "NEVER," he thundered, "- INSULT- ALBUS- DUMBLEDORE- IN- FRONT- OF- ME!"

Dumbledore clapped Hagrid on the back cheerfully in thanks.

He brought the umbrella swishing down through the air to point at Dudley - there was a flash of violet light, a sound like a firecracker, a sharp squeal, and the next second, Dudley was dancing on the spot with his hands clasped over his fat bottom, howling in pain. When he turned his back on them, Harry saw a curly pig's tail poking through a hole in his trousers.

Everyone saw that a screen appear in front of them, showing a video of Hagrid hexing the son of the Dursleys. Everyone, not including the professors fell on the ground in fits of laughter.

Uncle Vernon roared. Pulling Aunt Petunia and Dudley into the other room, he cast one last terrified look at Hagrid and slammed the door behind them.

Hagrid looked down at his umbrella and stroked his beard. "Shouldn'ta lost me temper," hesaid ruefully, "but it didn't work anyway. Meant ter turn him into a pig, but I suppose he was so much like a pig anyway there wasn't much left ter do."

Even the Professors were laughing, so it took a while for everyone to calm down.

He cast a sideways look at Harry under his bushy eyebrows.

"Be grateful if yeh didn't mention that ter anyone at Hogwarts," he said. "I'm - er - not supposed ter do magic, strictly speakin'. I was allowed ter do a bit ter follow yeh an' get yer letters to yeh an' stuff - one o' the reasons I was so keen ter take on the job."

"Why aren't you supposed to do magic?" asked Harry.

Molly scolded him, "Harry, don't ask such questions."

Harry flushed red, "I was hit in the face with information about a world I didn't even know existed, and surely you can't blame me!"

"Oh, well - I was at Hogwarts meself but I - er - got expelled, ter tell yeh the truth. In me third year. They snapped me wand in half an' everything. But Dumbledore let me stay on as gamekeeper. Great man, Dumbledore."

Many of them holey agreed with him.

"Why were you expelled?"

James shook his head and told Ash, "He won't tell anyone the reason that he got expelled, he makes it sound horrible or something." She shook her head at him in exasperation and just left it alone, surely they will find out later on.

"It's gettin' late and we've got lots ter do tomorrow," said Hagrid loudly. "Gotta get up ter town, get all yer books an' that." He took off his thick black coat and threw it to Harry.

"You can kip under that," he said. "Don' mind if it wriggles a bit, I think I still got a couple o' dormice in one o' the pockets."

"With no doubt." Harry, Hermione, and Ron said teasingly to their friend.

Remus took the book gently out of her hands and began to read the next chapter.

Dimidium transmutationis: half transformation


End file.
